It ain’t easy to spin dismal job numbers

The Conservative government relied on a familiar refrain to try to spin its way out of Friday’s awful jobs report released by Statistics Canada.

First, the facts:

• 60,000 full-time jobs were lost in December, translating into a loss of 46,000 jobs overall (with the creation of 14,200 part-time jobs).

• Canada’s jobless rate increased to 7.2%, up from 6.9%, the “biggest one-month increase in the rate since May 2009.“
• On average, Canadian employers created a “measly 8,500 jobs per month last year – just one-third of the moderate rate of employment growth experienced in 2012.”

• Over the past year, “one full-time job was added for every four part-time jobs.”

Second, the analysis from Bay Street:

• “BMO’s Doug Porter calls job numbers nasty, ugly and sour.”

• “Scotiabank note calls jobs numbers a shocker, weakest job growth by far since the recession.”

• “Disappointment across the board,” said Mark Chandler, head of fixed income and currency strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

• “That full-time employment growth is nearly flat in the past year while part-time job growth is up 2.5 per cent ‘indicates that businesses are not eager to expand payrolls,'” said Arlene Kish, senior principal economist at IHS Global Insight.

Third, a recap of past Conservative spin:

Whenever faced with bad economic news, the Conservatives claim that Canada leads the G-7 in jobs and economic growth since the recession. They make this misleading statement by using selective statistics.

When population growth and purchasing power are taken into account to get the complete picture, Canada falls behind G-7 countries Germany, Japan and the United States. That’s fourth place (out of 7!).

Fourth, the go-to spin:

Watch Industry Minister James Moore try to spin the bad news using the “Yah, but we’re still #1” discredited stat.