Employment – June 2009

On friday Statistics Canada released the June 2009 Employment Numbers. From May to June 09 Canada lost around 7,400 jobs.  The graph below illustrates employment in Canada over the last two years for all Canadians 15 and older.

The absolute number of jobs losses appears to have levelled off from what we exeprienced  from the peak in October 2008  until March 2009.  However when you dig into the numbers you’ll notice that Canada is still losing a decent number of full time jobs (-47,500 from May – June) while part time jobs are being created (+40,100 from May – June) which is giving us this net sideways trend. See the graph below that displays the month over month growth in full time and part time employment.

With the recent month over month job losses in combination with an increased number of people actively looking for work the unemployment rate jumped from 8.4% to 8.6% from May to June 2009.

The key takaways from this data is that Canada still continues to lose full time jobs and unemployment continues to creep upwards. Although the decline in employment is not as bad as it was in Q1 we are still not outr of the woods just yet. Take this into account when making any projections about the timing of an economic recovery.