Friday, October 9, 2009

The Training Wheels Economy rolls on

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the economy managed to produce 31,000 jobs last month – however, I find it a little hard to shout recovery from the roof-tops when nearly all of the employment gains were from public sector jobs and “self-employment”. Moreover, the fall in the unemployment rate, from 8.7% to 8.4% had just as much to do with the 25,000 people leaving the labour force in September (is this a back to school effect?). The market seemed to agree with my assessment. The TSX welcomed the jobs report by falling 50 points.

All in all, the data released this week continues to point to a modest recovery in Q3 and an economy that would be continuing to slide if not for extraordinary government support.


2 comments:

Trevor Tombe said...

One other hilarious note in the LFS report: The number one job-gaining industry over the last twelve months was finance and real estate! Just shows a huge contrast between our economy and the US.

Best Home Mortgage Rates said...

I don't think that the unemployment rate is just 8.7%. According to unofficial sources the total unemployment percentagaes in US is more than, 15%. This is mainly due to global economic recession and hopefully we shall recover from it in next 6 - 8 months.