Jobless Rate Dips As Economy Grows

With all the talk about the Canadian dollar reaching parity this week, it now goes without saying that the nation’s economy is quickly growing back to a healthy state. Further evidence of this was revealed today by The Toronto Star‘s business reporter, Emily Mathieu in an article proclaiming the gaining of 18,000 new jobs last month.

She reports that Ontario made up for the bulk of the hiring as 10,000 new jobs were added. The news came as a result of a recent Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada. Ontario’s unemployment rate now sits at 8.8 per cent, down 0.3 points.

BMO Capital Markets economist Benjamin Reitzes advises that while some sectors saw gains, others still experienced losses offsetting the overall rate of growth in the province. The strongest sectors included trade, education and public administration. The weakest were transportation, warehousing, management and administrative services.

Said Reitzes: “There is a lot of volatility in those numbers. Some big pluses and some big minuses…Overall any positive for Ontario is a good thing…(The province is) moving closer, slowly but surely, to the national average. It will be a while before we get there but moving towards it is always a big positive.”

In addition to Ontario, Mathieu reports that Quebec and Saskatchewan also saw increases in their employment rates. The rest of the nation saw little change in their job growth. Nevertheless, March marked the third straight month of employment growth in Canada. Clearly, 2010 has been off to a good start in the job market.

Mathieu unveils some of the data from the Statistics Canada survey in her report. She writes: “The service sector noted increases in professional, scientific and technical services, up 38,000 and offset by declines of 30,000 in repair and maintenance, and personal and laundry services. The report also showed a 26,000 loss in business, building and other support services and a 20,000 decline in transportation and warehousing.”

She also reveals that although the goods-producing sector has shown strength recently, its employment rate is below its peak of October 2008. It should be noted, however that the service sector’s rate is 45,000 above its October 2008 level.

Finally, Mathieu writes that the largest employment gains since July 2009 have been among women aged 25 to 54. During that eight month period, men aged 55 and older also saw an increase while youth, men aged 25 to 54 and women 55 and older all only reported slight gains.

As always, Synergy Merchant Services supports the nation’s effort to provide more job opportunities. We continue to keep our doors open to those seeking a career in serving Canadian business owners through our great merchant cash advance program.