With friends like these: business group calls out Tories on crappy jobs record

When your government’s main talking point is about how well you’re managing the economy, it must really hurt when a business group says it’s been “a year of lacklustre job growth in Canada.”

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has done just that with a new report titled Canada’s Labour Market Sputtered in 2013.

Some key findings:

• Employment grew by a “mere” 0.6%, the slowest pace recorded since 2009.
• 95% of the net jobs created were in part-time positions, raising “concerns about the quality of jobs being created. In sharp contrast, all the net new jobs created in 2012 were full-time positions. Part-time positions made up nearly one-in-five positions in 2013.”
• All the net jobs created were in the services sector.
• The number of employed Canadians of “prime working-age” (25 to 54) declined in 2013.
• The unemployment rate among Canada’s youth (15 to 24 years of age) remained above pre-recession levels, clocking in at 14.0 per cent. This is “up slightly from the rate registered 12 months earlier and is almost double the overall jobless rate.”

Photo: 88097768@N02. Used under a Creative Commons BY 2.0 licence.