BC/Yukon Region - Labour Force Survey - January 2007

• Major Employment Gains in January
• Manufacturing Employment
• Summary of Labour Force Survey Results
       - Summary Data - BC
       - Employment by Industry - BC
       - Employment by Sector - BC
       - Unemployment Rates by Age & Sex - BC
       - Unemployment Rates - Provinces
       - Unemployment Rates - BC Economic Regions

Major Employment Gains in January

Based on seasonally adjusted data, January brought another 32,000 jobs to BC, an increase of 1.4% in just a single month. Compared to January of 2006, employment in BC is up by 81,000 or 3.7%, well above the national gain of 2.4%, and better than any province except Saskatchewan (4.6%) and Alberta (6.5%).

Both the employment rate of 63.5% and the unemployment rate of just 4.3% were best-ever values for these indicators in BC. Lower unemployment rates are only found in Saskatchewan (4.1%) and Alberta (3.3%). However, while the employment rate is comparable to Ontario's 63.6%, it is still less than on the Prairies, especially Alberta's 71.5%. The implication of our lower employment rate is that, with a strengthening job market and reported shortages, there is still considerable room in BC's resident population to attract additional supplies of labour.

The employment gain since last year is dominated by the goods sector, accounting for 62% of the increase, by full-time work, which made up 71% of the gain, and by private sector paid jobs, which were 54% of the increase. Males accounted for 69% of the additional jobs, and adults aged 25 and older made up 91%. People in the "prime age" years from 25 to 54 accounted for 53% of the employment increase, while people over 55 represented a surprisingly large 39% of the additional employment. As can be seen in Table 2 below, the biggest industrial gains were in primary forestry and minerals (11,500), construction (24,000), and manufacturing (14,400), as well as health and social services (23,300) and management and administration (17,300). Information, culture and recreation, which appears to have gained in the most recent month, is still down 10,000 from last year.

Far west drives employment growth, helps Aboriginals

Employment rose in Canada's two westernmost provinces in January with British Columbia leading the way...

Much of British Columbia's increase in January came from gains in the service sector, namely in trade; accommodation and food services; and information, culture and recreation. Favourable snow conditions may have spurred additional hiring in these ski-related industries. Increases in the goods sector were in construction and natural resources...

The strong demand for labour in Alberta and British Columbia has continued to draw Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike into the labour market; however, this was particularly true for Aboriginal people. Since January 2005, employment rates among off-reserve Aboriginal people in Alberta have increased by 3.1 percentage points to 63.8% and by 5.5 percentage points in British Columbia to 58.5%. Over the same period, employment rates among non-Aboriginal people increased by 1.0 percentage point in Alberta and 1.6 percentage points in British Columbia. In January, the employment rate among off-reserve Aboriginal people living in Alberta was comparable to the national employment rate of 63.4%.

Statistics Canada Daily February 9, 2007

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Manufacturing Employment

Manufacturing makes up a smaller share of BC's employment than it does across Canada, 9% here compared to 13% nationally. In the past a majority of BC's manufacturing was directly tied to resource processing, including forest products, food and beverage processing, and basic mineral products. But since 2000 manufacturers not tied to resources have employed more people than resource based ones, with the exception of the year 2003.

Since 1987, employment in BC's non-resource based manufacturing sectors has increased by nearly 43,000 jobs, a 67% gain. This is a trend not found across the country, where non-resource manufacturing employment has increased by only 6% since 1987. The annual rate of increase in BC for these non-resource manufacturers has been 2.9%, a little faster than the overall job market and equal to that of the service producing sectors, which are typically portrayed as leaving goods producing sectors like manufacturing well behind. Large majorities of these new jobs have gone to males and to workers in the 25 to 54 year age group, about 80% in both cases.

The fastest proportionate increases have come in computers and electronics (326%), miscellaneous (149%), non-metallic minerals (147%) and chemicals (115%). In terms of absolute numbers of jobs the big contributors to the overall increase were miscellaneous (7.6), computers and electronics (6.3), fabricated metals (6.0), non-metallic minerals (4.9), machinery (4.0), furniture (3.8), plastics and rubber (3.4), electrical equipment (3.3), and chemicals (3.2).