Manufacturing responsible for December 2011 job gains

Fueled by gains in manufacturing, Canada’s economy began creating jobs again in December after two consecutive months of declines – but, with more Canadians entering the labor force, it wasn’t enough to keep the unemployment rate from increasing to 7.5 per cent.

According to Statistics Canada’s first major economic report card of 2012, the manufacturing sector accounted for all and more of the jobs increase, adding 30,400 workers, while construction saw a drop of 12,000.

The net gain of 17,500 jobs comes as a corrective to November and October’s significant setbacks of 73,000. But StatsCan noted that all the gains were in the weaker categories of part-time and self-employment, whereas full-time work fell by 25,500 and the number of employees in the country declined by 13,600 in December.

The losses were offset by gains of 43,100 in part-time work and 31,100 in self-employment.

According to StatsCan, every province in Canada saw a slight increase in employment except Quebec, where big losses in the construction and health care and social assistance sectors contributed to a decline of 25,700 jobs.

The December labor market report does little to change the overall picture of an economy that is struggling to create sufficient employment to keep up with growth in the population and new entrants.

After a strong start of the year, Canada has now gone six months without any significant job gains. StatsCan said of the 199,000 jobs created in 2011, almost all came in the first six months.