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City's employment numbers take downward turn
(Hamilton Spectator, Steve Arnold, Oct 11 2013)

Hamilton has lost 14,000 jobs over the past year, according to the most recent figures from Statistics Canada.

The latest issue of the agency's Labour Force Survey shows the area shed 3,000 full-time positions and 11,000 part-time jobs since September of last year.

The loss kicked the Hamilton-Burlington-Grimsby area's unemployment rate to 7.5 per cent, up half a percentage point from the same month last year. The national unemployment rate stands at 6.9 per cent.

Economist Erin Weir of the United Steelworkers said the StatsCan numbers paint a grim picture for Hamilton.

"The numbers for Hamilton strike me as being atrociously bad," he said. "Those numbers are devastating at a time when the working age population is growing."

Specifically, the federal numbers, a three-month moving average not seasonally adjusted, show that between September 2012 and last month the region's population rose by 6,200 while its labour force shrank by 8,800.

Total employment fell to 366,000 from 380,200 while the number not in the labour force rose 19,400 and the number officially unemployed rose by 1,000.

(The most common measure of the unemployment rate only counts people actively looking for work as unemployed. People who've given up the search are not counted.)

Weir speculated part of the loss in Hamilton may be continued job losses in the manufacturing sector. Nationally, that segment shed 26,000 jobs in the most recent report.

Neil Everson, director of the city's economic development department, found the federal numbers "hard to believe" because the area hasn't experienced any large layoffs or plant closings recently.

Instead, it has seen continued development of the Ancaster industrial park and the first hiring for the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Glanbrook.

"We're still seeing good solid activity out there," he said. "The signs say we're doing quite well."