Job creation surge bypasses Hamilton
National numbers encouraging but don't translate at local level
Steve Arnold
The Canadian Press
(Jul 10, 2010)
http://www.thespec.com/News/Business/article/805224
"Canada held a job creation festival last month, but Hamilton wasn't invited. The latest figures from Statistics Canada show the economy pumped out 93,200 new jobs in June. Almost all of them were in Ontario and Quebec and all were in the service sector. The net effect was to bring the national unemployment rate down to 7.9 per cent -- the first time that figure has fallen below 8 per cent since January 2009. Hamilton, however, saw the number of unemployed here increase compared with the same period last year and the year-over-year jobless rate rise half a percentage point to 7.7 from 7.2. The rate dropped marginally from 7.8 per cent in May. Compared with the same time last year, Hamilton's situation hasn't improved at all -- its population has grown but the workforce has shrunk and the ranks of the unemployed have grown...
Compared with June 2009, the number of people employed in the Hamilton area shrank by about 10,000 while the number classed as unemployed rose by 1,500."