By Fred Morley
Halifax had the largest employment gain over the last 12 months of any city in the country…9,400 jobs according to today’s labour force survey. Only Regina at (+3,900) and Saskatoon (+7,000) out of red hot Saskatchewan came anywhere close. In Atlantic Canada St. John’s (+200) and Saint John (+2,700) held their own. Over the same period of time, the national economy has lost 441,000 jobs. Halifax is doing a little better than holding its own.
Halifax’s diverse economy has held up well during the recession. We continue to have a dynamic labour market with almost 72% of the working age population active in the labour market…among the top 5 most active labour markets in Canada.
Now we’ve seen a bit of a decline in employment in Halifax in the last month (-1,400 from July) but our unemployment rate (6.5%) is still well below Calgary (7.1%) and Edmonton (7.3). Employment levels are down by 12,700, 25,200, and 6,200 in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver in the last year.. No wonder people are moving back…not that we’re competitive or anything.
Fred Morley is the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at the Greater Halifax Partnership.
Click on the image below to view the Labour Force information document (pdf).
Great news for Halifax. It's nice to hear some good news in these economic tough times.
Please keep sharing more of this kind of information with us.
Posted by: Steve | Friday, September 04, 2009 at 03:07 PM