Paul Martin's Business Update - February 10th

Paul Martin's Business Update - February 10th

The employment numbers for January in this province provided an unusual development….they went down.

These monthly figures, compiled by StatsCan, are generated through a survey and contain a lot of variations that can provide findings that sometimes are a bit puzzling. This month’s update is a good case.

Overall, job numbers declined from December to January. They’re still ahead of where we were a year ago – the most often quoted stat from these reports – but the drop for the month is no doubt what will capture all the attention because it resulted in a bump in the unemployment rate.

Digging a bit deeper, though, and it appears that all the disappearing jobs were part-time. That may be a reflection of a hiring blitz for the holiday season in December, retailers looking to shore up their teams for the busy period which includes longer opening hours.

Full-time employment, on the other hand, rose by nearly 5,000 in the month – not enough to offset the 6,000 part-time jobs that disappeared – but significant nonetheless, leaving Saskatoon and Regina with the lowest unemployment rates in the nation.

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