News Toronto & GTA
Toronto not the go-to town for jobs

By DON PEAT, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 5th September 2009, 2:41am

Hogtown's unemployment rate edged up again to 10.1% last month -- making once job-rich Toronto one of the cities in Canada with the highest percentage of unemployed residents.

The GTA's growing jobless rate, up from 10% a month earlier, bucked the national trend in unemployment numbers released by Statistics Canada that seem to show the national economy was revving up.

More than 27,000 new jobs were created across Canada in August, with the bonus that the pivotal private sector finally kicked into gear after 11 months of shedding jobs.

Although most of the new jobs were part-time positions, economists said any growth so early in the recovery was significant.

"It just reinforces the view that the recession has ended and that we're in the early stages of a recovery," said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist with BMO Capital Markets.

"We had boom-like times in the construction industry as recently as a year ago and that's turned around very rapidly," Porter said yesterday. "Another area that has generally suffered or been weaker than normal is tourism-related sectors, partly because of a strong Canadian dollar, partly because Americans just aren't travelling."

Porter cautioned since the city unemployment numbers. are a three-month average, they'll take longer to turn round than monthly national numbers unveiled yesterday.

Across Canada only automotive-industry-dependent Windsor, London, Ont., and Sudbury had higher jobless rates than Toronto.

"Obviously it is a concern when you have a double-digit unemployment rate, that's higher than the U.S. figure, it's actually a higher unemployment rate than the province of Quebec, New Brunswick or Nova Scotia," Porter said.

"Typically when you look back in history, Toronto's been a magnet for many areas of the country -- as a place to go to find work. Now we actually have an unemployment rate which is well above the national average."

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said it wasn't surprised Toronto kept losing jobs. "There is a heightened level of skepticism among small businesses in the city," said senior policy analyst Plamen Petkov. "Across the country we see really increased expectations about better business performance going forward.

"Toronto though is different ... they think that the city administration cannot really provide a competitive environment for small businesses."

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WHERE THE JOBS AREN'T -- PROVINCE BY PROVINCE

Cities taking longer to come out of the slump, because of the way the numbers are assessed

The national unemployment rate was 8.7% in August. Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):

- Newfoundland: 15.6 (17.1)

- P.E.I.: 13.7 (12.2)

- Nova Scotia: 9.5 (9.2)

- New Brunswick: 9.3 (9.4)

- Quebec: 9.1 (9.0)

- Ontario: 9.4 (9.3)

- Manitoba: 5.7 (5.2)

- Saskatchewan: 5.0 (4.7)

- Alberta: 7.4 (7.2)

- British Columbia: 7.8 (7.8)

Statistics Canada also released seasonally adjusted, three-month moving average unemployment rates for major cities (Previous month in brackets):

- St. John's, N.L.: 8.2 (8.1)

- Halifax: 6.4 (6.0)

- Saint John, N.B.: 5.2 (5.0)

- Saguenay, Que.: 9.3 (9.8)

- Quebec City: 5.1 (4.8)

- Trois-Rivieres, Que.: 8.6 (8.3)

- Sherbrooke: 7.6 (8.5)

- Montreal: 9.6 (9.6)

- Gatineau, Que.: 5.8 (5.4)

- Ottawa: 5.2 (6.0)

- Kingston: 6.8 (7.2)

- Toronto: 10.1 (10.0)

- Hamilton: 8.7 (8.2)

- Kitchener: 9.9 (9.9)

- London, Ont.: 11.1 (10.9)

- Oshawa: 9.9 (9.7)

- St. Catharines-Niagara: 9.9 (10.5)

- Sudbury: 10.6 (9.8)

- Thunder Bay: 8.7 (8.5)

- Windsor: 14.8 (15.2)

- Winnipeg: 5.8 (5.3)

- Regina: 4.1 (3.2)

- Saskatoon: 4.5 (4.7)

- Calgary: 7.1 (6.9)

- Edmonton: 7.3 (7.0)

- Abbotsford, B.C.: 9.0 (9.0)

- Vancouver: 7.3 (7.0)

- Victoria: 5.7 (6.1)

-- The Canadian Press