Behind Canada's stagnant jobs picture lurks a disruptive prerecession trend: Jobless rates are tumbling below the national average in the resource-rich West, while Central Canada grapples with a loss of factory jobs and a prevalence of part-time job growth.
The manufacturing sector, once the engine of job creation, continues to erode. Manufacturing’s share of total employment shrank to its lowest level on record last month. It now stands at just 10 per cent, compared with 19 per cent three decades ago, Statistics Canada figures show.
Natural resources are now the fastest-growing source of employment in the country, while manufacturing – where three-quarters of the country's activity is in Ontario and eastward – continues to tally sharp declines. Ontario and Quebec have together lost more than 75,000 factory positions in the past year.
“There are still lots and lots of challenges,” such as the strong dollar, weak U.S. demand and fading government stimulus spending, said Jayson Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. That said, a key area where he’s seeing a boom is manufacturing related to green energy – in the West.
Job growth in Canada as a whole remains weak. Employment was little changed for a fifth month in a row in November, Statscan said Friday. And while the jobless rate dropped to 7.6 per cent from 7.9 per cent, it stemmed more from fewer young people looking for work than any pickup in the labour market.
Provincial figures show the East-West divide. The unemployment rate in Ontario and provinces to the east hover above the national average, while in Manitoba and provinces to the west, joblessness is below average.
In the manufacturing sector, even growing companies are not boosting their employment levels.
Fraser Edison, chief executive officer of Rutter Inc., a Newfoundland-based manufacturer of electronic equipment, said his firm’s job levels have remained stable, despite averaging 2-per-cent growth in annual sales over the past several years.
“The work force has stayed relatively static, because we have to look for ways to improve productivity,” Mr. Edison said.
The high Canadian dollar has forced the company’s hand, he said. “We’re selling into the U.S. and around the world, so we’re trying to modernize and mechanize [to] improve our efficiency.”
It's a common refrain among factory owners these days. Robert Hammond, CEO of Hammond Manufacturing Co. in Guelph, Ont., says the exchange rate is by far the biggest factor keeping employment numbers in check. “Why would anyone expand … when the exchange rate is just punishing for Canadian companies?”
While Mr. Hammond, whose company makes electrical enclosures and equipment, is hiring some staff, employment levels are just back to the levels reached in 2008 before the recession kicked in.
To be sure, Ontario did see job growth in other sectors last month, including retail and health care and social assistance, which helped lower the jobless rate to a still-high 8.2 per cent. But job creation in both Ontario and Quebec has been skewed toward part-time work in the past year, while higher-paying factory jobs have disappeared. Furniture, clothing, paper and chemical factories have shed the most jobs in the past year, according to Statscan's separately released payrolls data.
Across the country, part-time work has grown 4 per cent from last year, more than triple the rate of full-time employment. Nearly 40 per cent of job growth since last November has been in part-time positions, according to the Conference Board of Canada.
Western Canada’s employment picture, meantime, is brightening. Manitoba's jobless rate, at 5.1 per cent, remains the lowest in the country. The unemployment rate in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan are all well below the national rate and a growing number of firms are reporting labour shortages.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall told The Globe and Mail this week that his province has thousands of positions open, from the services sector to mining and oil and gas. “We have jobs to fill,” he said. “We just need to continue to grow.”
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A SECTOR IN DECLINE
The Canadian manufacturing sector continued its slide last month. Five key numbers on the decline:
28,600
The drop in manufacturing employment in November from October
46,800
Number of jobs lost in the sector from the same month last year
1.73 million
Number of Canadians now working in the industry
19 per cent
The manufacturing sector’s share of total employment in 1976.
10 per cent
Manufacturing’s share of total employment last month -- the lowest since comparable data began in 1976
Source: Statistics Canada
