Paul Martin's Business Update August 19th, 2014

Late last week Statistics Canada had to do a difficult thing – they had to correct their all-important jobs report.

This is a monthly release that a lot of people rely upon. Job growth or loss can be something of a bellwether of where the economy is headed. Slow growth or negative numbers can mean the Bank of Canada will not tighten credit, for example, and that affects the value of the Canadian dollar which in turn impacts exports.

So this is an important report and having to admit it got it wrong is tough for anyone.

The updated report showed the national picture was significantly better than the original report suggested – tens of thousands of new jobs were created last month, not the hundreds that had originally been reported. But here in Saskatchewan the correction was not quite as dramatic.

The biggest change was in the unemployment rate. It’s now 3.2 per cent, a third of a point lower than earlier report and the lowest number in 40 years when employment figures were first recorded.

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