Friday, January 17, 2014

Toronto December 2013 Unemployment Numbers

I'm slowly progressing towards making a post about the Hamilton 2013 December jobs numbers, but I thought I would mention the poor Toronto numbers first. Some stats from this article from the Toronto Star:

"The jobless rate for the Toronto region — at 8.4 per cent in December — is the second highest among Canada’s major urban centres.

It is higher than the national average — 7.2 per cent — and it is even higher than that for cities like Windsor, which were harder hit by the 2008 recession, according to Statistics Canada data.

The city’s jobless rate is even higher when the numbers for the suburbs are stripped out of the StatsCan data for the Toronto area.

In a report delivered Tuesday to the city’s economic development committee, councillors heard the unemployment rate in Toronto proper had risen to 10.1 per cent."

Wow 10.1 percent in the City of Toronto is quite high, although I'm sure historically Toronto has had a relatively higher level compared to other areas of Ontario. One thing I would say about it, is that with rising housing and rental costs over the past decade in Toronto coupled with median income that has been pretty stagnant over the same time period, a lot of people in Toronto don't have a lot of money left over after housing costs to buy discretionary goods and services. That can't be very good for job creation.

Where will employment in Toronto go in 2014? The dollar dropping against the US dollar recently should help, bringing in tourism and lowering the number of the people that go to the US or other places for tourism or shopping. I'm not sure how much manufacturing is left in Toronto proper to benefit from a lower dollar.

What will be interesting will be to see how many Torontonians move out to other places including Alberta versus immigrants new to the country moving in and how that changes the composition of employment. 

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