Jobs Jump In June

There’s nothing like ending the work week off with a little good news, eh? As the Synergy Merchant Services Blog continues to keep a close eye on the financial landscape of our great nation, we are happy to report today that job opportunities are becoming more plentiful.

As one of our favourite writers from QMI Agency, Sharon Singleton reports today on The Toronto Sun‘s website, over 93,000 new jobs were created in the month of June sending Canada’s unemployment rate down to 7.9 per cent. Last month’s job growth was actually five times greater than what economists had expected.

As Singleton points out that this provides proof that Canada’s economy continues to get stronger in the post-recession era as the jobless rate is now below 8 per cent – a feat not accomplished since January 2009. Economists, expected for there to only be 18,000 new jobs in June. Good thing they were wrong!

The most significant thing about the spike in job opportunities last month is the fact that Canada has now recovered almost all of the jobs that were lost during the global financial crisis. In the United States, the unemployment rate continues to be stagnant.

In fact, Canada is easily outdoing its counterpart to the south by leaps and bounds in the job creation field. Singleton writes that according to TD Bank Financial and “adjusting for population, Canada has created four million jobs since July 2009 compared with 176,000 in the U.S.”

Said BMO Capital Markets economist, Benjamin Reitzes: “There’s no arguing with this strong report. The jobs picture clearly shows that the Canadian recovery hasn’t stalled yet, despite signs of slowing momentum in the U.S. and other economies.”

“The provinces of Ontario and Quebec accounted for nearly all the gains,” adds Singleton as the two provinces created 90,000 new jobs in June. Ironically, the controversial G8 and G20 Summits may have been responsible for the addition of so many new job positions in the region.

Singleton notes that the new jobs were split between full-time and part-time workers. The biggest increases were found in the retail, business, health care, service and automotive repair sectors, according to Statistics Canada. The only provinces to experience job declines were Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick.