Paul Martin's Business Update - October 14th, 2014

There was a surge in job numbers last month.

The regular update on the employment picture from StatsCan shows Saskatchewan employers had generated nearly 19,000 new positions in the past year. That makes this province the fastest growing job market in the country.

A big chunk of that growth – 7,000 jobs – came in September alone. And, the bulk of those spots were full-time, about 5,000 in all.

The September figures also showed that job creation exceeded the expansion of the labor market. Even though more people are moving here the pace of migration was not enough to catch up to job growth. Consequently, the overall unemployment rate fell to 3.5 per cent. That is just a bit higher than the July figure which was the all-time record. We saw a bit of an increase in August but that was reversed in September.

In August we were talking about the labor market finding an equilibrium – with job creation and migration evening out. But a month later that imbalance is back as employers create more jobs than the labor force can fill.

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