TD Bank proclaims "the end of a rising unemployment rate"

For the last two days, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inner cabinet has been huddled at Meech Lake, Que. fine-tuning the policy directions the government will take in next month's federal budget and throne speech. And on each of those last two days, Industry Minister Tony Clement was released from those meetings for an hour or so to update reporters on those meetings. There was not a lot of news in those updates but Clement did say, on both days, that job creation is now the government's number one priority.

The Canadian economy, we learned this morning, is not waiting for the government. Entrepreneurs across the land have been busy creating jobs on their own.

Statistics Canada reports that in January, the Canadian economy added 43,000 jobs, a sign of strength that surprised many professional forecasters, who were expecting a rather tepid employment report. Most those new jobs were part-time but, still economists say the results were a positive sign. And Statscan itself notes that the number of people in Canada is far off the peak employment numbers of October, 2008 (the month of our last general election, coincidentally). In fact, there are 280,000 Canadians who had a job the last time they voted for a federal government that do not have one right now.

That said: the unemployment rate, which peaked at 8.7 per cent last August dropped in January to 8.3 per cent. TD Bank's Diana Petramala crunches the data and concludes that it's only going to get better for Canadians looking for work and, by extension, for a government trying to show that its policies are putting Canadians to work:

The job gains this month were largely consistent with the current stage in the economic recovery. We estimate that Canadian real GDP grew by 4% annualized in the fourth quarter and are expecting growth of 3.6% in the first quarter of 2010. Typically, during early stages of recovery, these types of quarterly growth rates are consistent with average monthly employment increases in the range of 20,000-25,000. The 3-month moving average for job gains is roughly consistent with this estimate at 29,000. As the Canadian economic recovery gains steam in the near-term, we expect continued improvements in the labour market, with average monthly job gains holding in the current range. In addition, we have likely seen the end of a rising unemployment rate.

One thought on “TD Bank proclaims "the end of a rising unemployment rate"”

  1. 41,000 part time jobs is not a recovery. We've stabilized. But most economists believe it will take a long time to recover the job loss and the jobs that will be created will not be as good and as well-paid as the ones lost. So recovery will be even longer. A worse wage means you aren't going to be spending like you were before. It's a bogus feel good day.

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