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Job creation in Canada: East Vs. West

If you are male between 15 and 24 and live in Montreal you are screwed!  Unemployment in the gender/population  segment is the worse in Canada -- on the other hand if you are a female, unemployment is not a problem!  In fact, in the 24/65 age bracket women in Canada are near full employment -- they are mostly service industry jobs, so probably not the best paying position, but at least women are working near or at full employment level.

The second trend is that a huge line divides between Ontario and Manitoba between job growth and job losses -- Ontario and Quebec, Canada's central manufacturing hub are suffering whereas Canada's resources based economy (yes oil and Gas but also mining) are doing great, and there is a deeper change too,, in that Western Canada's labor force is younger -- as Canadians are attracted to the job market there, so not only are there fewer jobs in Eastern Canada the demographic implications are severe.

Canada:  Employment Level



















Canada's labour force survey (came out on the 3rd) shows that aside for a spike in mid June, Canada's labor market has come off a little, from around 17.4MM jobs in the summer, the number of jobs has decreased by about 75,000 jobs (which is a lot -- its like if the US had lost 750,000 jobs).  In Canada, the labor force survey is preferred because it shows the number of jobs and the number is not askew because of statistical analysis (discouraged workers who've stopped looking for work).  Anyway, Eastern Canada is seeing job losses while Western Canada is seeing job growth (-0.3%) Vs (+4.3%).  Of course, Western provinces are much smaller than Eastern Canada -- 70% of all Canadians live in Ontario and Quebec.

I've been bitching about the main stream media's sudden discovery that Canada's housing market was reaching bubble territory -- more worrying is this week's article in The Economist, about the Canadian housing market, which according the that publication has the highest house price to income average ratio in the "English speaking world" (Hey what about us in French speaking Quebec?).

Overall, the news in Canada is not good, economic performance has been deteriorating and yet the CAD/USD exchange rate is still near parity.






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