The 'she-covery' of the recession

Economic recovery in this country is being lead by youths and women aged 25 and over, according to the latest labour force survey released by Statistics Canada.    

Armine Yalnizyan, the senior economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, finds this trend interesting and believes it’s due to the increase in women finding work in the public sector.   

“Most of the positive changes for women came from the health and education sector,” she said. “Those are permanent full-time jobs, as they’re defined.”

The Stats Can survey states that Canada’s unemployment rate in September made its first monthly decline to 8.4 per cent since October 2008. It was also the second consecutive month to see a full-time employment increase, but was off-set by the amount of part-time job losses.

“The unemployment rate is going down and so are the number of jobs,” Yalnizyan said. “The only job growth is for men in construction and utilities.”

The manufacturing bastion of male work also helped push the unemployment rate down, adding 26,000 new jobs last month.

“Employment in this industry had the sharpest rate of decline since the start of the labour market downturn in the fall of 2008,” stated the survey.   

According to Yalnizyan, in Canada most of the jobs are in the summer months and the fewest are in winter, which means the unemployment rate will soon go up again.

“You’re seeing a sudden spike in self-employment. The growth has been lead by women over 55,” she said. “It’s not that there aren’t any people under 55 doing it. It’s just that the biggest growth is in that category.”

A national organization called Community Foundations of Canada analyzes employment data and produces its own annual report for Canadians.

Community Foundations of Canada President Monica Patten says that change in youth unemployment statistics is a great sign for the health of the nation.

“Every year we report something about employment and work across the country and obviously work is central to the economic well-being of individuals,” she said. “This year summer work was very hard to come by for youth.”   

In the Stats Can survey it mentions the youth demographic aged 15-24 as one of the factors for full-time employment gains. 

Yalnizyan says that even though the numbers indicate this trend, the reason is that youth have returned to school for the fall, and she’s still unsure if there’s really been any recovery in Canada’s labour market.   

“We don’t know that the recession is over. What we know is the rate of decline has stopped and it looks like it has reversed.”