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Payroll employment, earnings and hours

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The Daily


Friday, March 30, 2007
January 2007 (preliminary)

The average weekly earnings of payroll employees (seasonally adjusted) increased $5.12 in January to $763.68, up 0.7% from December and 3.1% higher compared with January 2006.

In Canada's largest industrial sectors, year-over-year growth in January varied from increases of 3.7% in manufacturing and 3.2% in health and social assistance to a 1.1% advance in education services.

At the provincial level, Alberta led all provinces with growth of 5.8% from January 2006 to January 2007.

In Canada, there was an increase of 53,100 (+0.4%) payroll jobs in January, which followed an iadvance of 30,400 in December. Most provinces showed increases in employment from December to January, with the largest percentage gains recorded in Prince Edward Island (+2.1%), and New Brunswick (+1.6%). The largest absolute increases were in Ontario (+15,200) and Alberta (+9,200).

The average hourly earnings for hourly paid employees climbed 0.6% in January to $18.89. The average weekly hours for hourly paid employees edged down 0.3% to 31.5 hours.

Annual averages for the 2006 calendar year are now available. Over the year, payroll employment grew 2.5%. Provinces showing the strongest job gains were Alberta (+6.0%) and British Columbia (+4.4%).

Average weekly earnings rose 3.0% in 2006. Alberta also led the provinces in earnings growth, with an increase of 4.9%.

The average weekly hours of hourly-paid employees rose 0.3%, and their average per-hour earnings were up 2.4% for 2006.

Annual revisions to estimates from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours are also included in this release. Seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures for reference months dating back to 2001 have been revised. There are also some very minor changes to seasonally adjusted estimates dating back to January 1991.

Various estimates are affected by the revisions. The most significant impacts are on the employment estimates for the following industries: construction; education; manufacturing, and professional, scientific and technical services.

For further information concerning these revisions, see contact information below.

Available on CANSIM: tables 281-0023 to 281-0046.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 2612.

Detailed industry data, data by size of enterprise based on employment, and other labour market indicators will be available soon in the monthly publication Employment, Earnings and Hours (72-002-XIB, free).

Data on payroll employment, earnings and hours for February will be released on April 26.

For general information or to order data, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-866-873-8788; 613-951-4090; fax: 613-951-2869; labour@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about revisions, concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Peter Lorenz (613-951-4167), Labour Statistics Division.

Tables. Table(s).