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Unemployment up 0.1%

Not entirely surprising, unemployment rose in August, it rose for two reasons:  First, all those employed by the Federal government to execute the 2011 census have now left!  Beginning in March and ending 31st July, the decennial census is now completed.  Second, the July private sector employment +95k was bound to lead to a slow down in August --- too much too soon too fast!  

Employment
(source: StatsCan)

Putting these numbers in perspective, nearly 1/4 million jobs were created during the pat 12 months, which is not that bad, in fact nearly 300,000 full time jobs were created -- and 77,000 part time jobs were eliminated -- full time work is always better than part time work.  The bulk of employment growth was in Ontario and Alberta.

Construction is one area that saw a rather sharp decrease in employment, but then no one is surprised about this as permits for construction peaked a year ago.  Overall, the August job creation performance was not bad, although negative.  The overwhelming fact that the employment at government levels is shrinking is a driven by policy (and the Census) where all levels of governments (Federal and Provincial) are looking at tools to reduce Canada's structural deficit (which is still around 2.5%).

Again a month doesn't a trend make, but there is no doubt that a slow down in employment was anticipated, Canada's economy Q2 performance was poor (slightly negative) and we know that capital good imports have declined over the past three months (it had been historically high previously -- which bods well for productivity).
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