(file photo/JPBG)

By Tyler Marr

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Another month of national employment surge, mixed bag regionally: StatsCan

Oct 11, 2019 | 5:05 PM

After a surge in employment in August, the nation’s economy once again added scores of new jobs in September.

Statistics Canada’s monthly labour force survey showed employment rose by 53,700, driven by upticks in full-time work. This pushed the unemployment rate down to 5.5 per cent from 5.7, though this was assisted by a drop in the participation rate.

All the gains came in the public sector and self-employment.

Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast a gain of 10,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent.

Full-time employment jumped by 70,000 while part-time work slid by 16,300 roles across the country. In the third quarter, employment increased by 111,000, or 0.6 per cent, similar to the 0.7 per cent growth in the second quarter.

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Despite the robust addition of new jobs, the national agency reported that hours-worked declined 0.3 per cent.

CIBC Senior Economist Royce Mendes wrote in a note to clients Friday that there is a lot to be thankful for with the cornucopia of jobs, but “the lack of private-sector hiring and softness in hours-worked data continue to point in the direction of a slowing in quarterly GDP growth ahead.”

Chief Economist and Managing Director of Economics Douglas Porter with the Bank of Montreal wrote that strong employment is not translating into strong spending and/or output gains.

“Even so, the healthy job market, along with the rebounding housing market, further reduces the already low odds that the Bank of Canada will match recent Fed rate cuts anytime soon.”

There were 900 full-time jobs added in Saskatchewan last month while 300 part-time roles were shed. This, coupled with a jump in the participation rate from 68.9 to 69.1 per cent, pushed the unemployment rate up 0.2 points to 5.3 per cent.

Data for Prince Albert and Northern Saskatchewan, which contains numbers for our region, painted a mixed picture.

The unemployment rate is down year-over-year from 8.2 per cent to 7.2, but the number of people employed is unchanged and the participation rate has climbed from 67 to 67.6 per cent. However, the population count has dropped from 159,200 to 157,800.

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tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr