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Jobs boom!

The year was 1974. Hockey legend Tim Horton was killed in a car crash, Soviet ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister and Bill Davis was Ontario's premier.

LINDA WHITE
[ 2006-04-12 ]

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Last month, the country's jobless rate dropped to the lowest since those stories made headlines 32 years ago. Interestingly, the college strike that may have kept students from learning about those stories in history classes likely helped pull the unemployment rate down to 6.3%.

"The strike action that temporarily closed Ontario college facilities may have given many youths more time to work at a paid job," Statistics Canada speculated in its latest Labour Force Survey, released Friday.

The economy churned out 50,500 new positions last month, far exceeding economists' predictions of 21,000 new jobs. Full-time jobs accounted for 44,000 of the new positions.

FULL-TIME JOB GROWTH


"This continues the long-term trend toward full-time employment growth in this country," Statistics Canada said. "Despite monthly fluctuations, part-time employment has remained around the same for the last three years."


Much of the credit for last month's booming job growth in Canada rests with Ontario. According to the survey, the province accounted for 31,000 of all new jobs -- trimming its jobless rate to 6.1% from 6.3% in February.

Of those jobs created in Ontario, more than 22,000 were among youth and most were full time. Nancy Schaefer, president of Youth Employment Service (YES) in Toronto, hopes those numbers will continue to increase.

"From our perspective here, working on the street level with young people, there are never enough jobs in the summer to go around for all the kids who need them," she says. "Really, our job is just as hard getting young people jobs. There aren't enough."

115,000 IN ONTARIO


In the past year, Ontario has accounted for 115,000 of 330,300 new jobs that have been added to the country's payrolls. Despite a large decline in manufacturing, strength in construction and a number of service-based industries created new jobs here. Since March 2005, there were gains of 44,000 in educational services and 30,000 in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing.

Nationally, employment increased in oil and gas, building services, transportation and warehousing, health care and social assistance, and in information, culture and recreation.

In British Columbia, an increase of 13,000 jobs in March drove its unemployment rate to 4.4% -- breaking the 30-year low set the previous month. Alberta was close behind, with 3.7% job growth. Employment in Newfoundland and Labrador dropped 3,000 in March. It also dropped last month in Manitoba and Prince Edward Island.

As the labour market tightens, wages continue to rise. The average hourly wage in March was up 3.5% from 12 months ago, well above the 2.2% increase in the Consumer Price Index. Hourly wage rate growth continues to be highest in energy-rich Alberta at 7%, Statistics Canada reports.

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STATSCAN QUICK FACTS


- Canada's jobless rate fell by 0.1 percentage points to 6.3% in March -- the lowest in 32 years -- Statistics Canada reports in its most recent Labour Force Survey.

- The employment rate - the share of the working age population that is employed -- hit a record 62.9%.

- Employment among young people aged 15 to 24 years increased by 33,000 in March, continuing the upward trend that began in fall 2005. The youth unemployment rate was at 11.5% in March -- among the lowest rates in the last 15 years.



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