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Payroll employment, earnings and hours

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October 2009 (preliminary) (Previous release)

Non-farm payroll employment increased by a moderate 34,500 in October. Since June, the trend in non-farm payroll employment has been flat, as a number of industries have shown a marked shift away from the large cuts that occurred during the first eight months in the economic downturn.

Total payroll employment

In October, less than half (44.3%) of all industries added to their payrolls. However, gains in education, health care and social assistance, as well as construction, were sufficiently large to offset declines elsewhere.

October's increase was mainly the result of an additional 20,000 jobs in educational services and 14,600 in health care and social assistance, as well as smaller gains in the construction sector and the banking industry.

The increases in education and health care and social assistance employment are part of a longer trend. Both sectors have recorded payroll employment gains throughout the economic downturn. Construction-related payroll jobs have been trending up since June.

Stabilization of labour market coming from a number of industries

Since June, when most Canadian industries began shifting away from heavy declines, non-farm payroll employment has edged up by 16,900. This amounts to an average increase of about 4,200 jobs per month nationally. This is not large, but is a notable change from the average monthly loss of 51,200 jobs in the eight months that followed October 2008.

Note to readers

These data come from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH). SEPH is a business survey that provides a detailed portrait of employees by industry. It complements information from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is a household survey.

Estimates of employment, wages and hours derived from these two surveys differ for a number of reasons.

First, the reference periods are different. LFS data are collected during a "reference week", usually the week following the 15th of the month. For SEPH, the reference period is an entire month.

The LFS includes people who are self-employed, as well as workers who take unpaid leave. SEPH does not cover these groups. Industry coverage for the LFS is comprehensive; SEPH excludes agriculture, fishing and trapping, and religious organizations.

The two count multiple job holders differently. In the LFS, people with more than one job are counted only once as "employed". SEPH is a count of filled positions on payroll, so each job is counted separately.

Finally, national estimates produced by the LFS do not include people living in the three territories or on reserves while SEPH does. LFS estimates are based on where people usually reside. SEPH counts employees in the province or territory where they work, although this has little effect on the comparability at the national level.

The shift in trends since June has come from a number of industries, with the largest change coming from manufacturing. From October 2008 to June 2009, manufacturing shed over 21,600 jobs a month on average. Since June, the pace of job losses has slowed considerably to about 6,000 a month.

Virtually all parts of manufacturing have moved from large declines to more moderate reductions in payroll counts. Motor vehicle parts manufacturing, where job losses were particularly steep between October 2008 and June 2009, has shown a slight increase since June.

The situation was similar in wood product manufacturing, another major contributor to the shift in the employment trend within manufacturing. With a small increase in payroll jobs in October, employment in this industry was up from where it was four months earlier. Wood manufacturers make lumber, plywood and other related products.

Solid recovery in construction

The improvement of the situation in wood product manufacturing is likely related to a recovery in construction, where payroll employment rose by 3,000 in October, the third consecutive monthly increase.

Compared with June, almost all industries in the construction sector have added jobs. The largest gains have been in heavy and civil construction jobs, the building of highway, streets, bridges and utilities systems. In that part of construction, payroll employment has increased by 7,500 since June, accounting for half of the overall gain in construction during this four-month period.

Job levels in some wholesale and retail trade industries with ties to construction have also stabilized or risen in recent months. This part of retail and wholesale trade appears to be recovering better than many other parts of the sector, which continued to see an overall decline in employment.

In October, 4,400 payroll jobs were added in depository credit intermediation, which includes banks and credit unions. This increase brought the number of employees working in this industry back to the record-high of January 2009.

Employment services (the group which includes temporary help agencies and job placement services) also saw an increase in October (+2,100). Employment services had seen a particularly large drop in payroll jobs in the early months of the downturn. It was another industry where the job situation showed more recent stability.

Although unchanged in October, the traveller accommodation industry has recovered almost all the job losses experienced earlier in the year. However, payroll employment in food service and drinking places fell by 3,200 in October, continuing its downward trend.

Payroll employment in public administration fell by 2,700 in October. Despite this drop, the level in public administration remains 20,500 higher than it was in June.

Proportion of industries experiencing a month-to-month change in payroll employment, October 2008 to October 2009

Slower growth in average weekly earnings in October than at start of downturn

Average weekly earnings, including overtime, of payroll employees was $831.17 in October, up 1.6% from October 2008. Year-over-year growth has been hovering around this level since June. In the months before the labour market contraction began, the year-over-year increase in average weekly earnings was in the 3% range.

Among Canada's largest industrial sectors, average weekly earnings increased between October 2008 and October 2009 in public administration (+4.2%), retail trade (+4.1%), educational services (+3.0%), accommodation and food services (+1.9%), and health care and social assistance (+1.1%). Average weekly earnings in construction were down 0.3% from October 2008.

Over the same period, average weekly earnings also fell in manufacturing (-1.9%). Earnings fell 6.3% from $1,011.79 to $947.65 in motor vehicle parts manufacturing, the manufacturing industry with the largest year-over-year drop in payroll jobs.

Other manufacturing industries experienced sharper drops in average weekly earnings than motor vehicle parts over this span. These include steel product manufacturing from purchased steel (-17.6%), iron and steel mills and ferro-alloy (-15.7%), non-ferrous metal (except aluminum) production and processing (-12.7%), and printing and related support activities (-12.6%).

Average weekly earnings rose in all provinces between October 2008 and October 2009. The fastest increase occurred in Prince Edward Island (+5.2%), followed by Manitoba (+4.7%) and Newfoundland and Labrador (+4.6%). Quebec experienced the smallest year-over-year increase (+0.7%).

Comparing Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours and Labour Force Survey

In October 2009, the number of non-farm payroll jobs as measured by the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) rose by 34,500 from September. For the same month, the number of employees in all industries as measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) fell by 71,000.

Some of this difference can be explained by the fact that SEPH shows payroll employment over the entire month, while the LFS reflects labour market conditions only for the week that usually includes the 15th of the month (see Note).

Non-farm payroll employment of the Survey of Employment Payrolls and Hours and total employment of the Labour Force Survey

In October, SEPH showed a gain in employment in education, which was not picked up during the October LFS reference week. There was, however, a large gain in education in the LFS by the time of the November LFS. This suggests that hiring in that sector occurred during the last two weeks of October, after the LFS reference week for that month.

Available on CANSIM: tables 281-0023 to 281-0039 and 281-0041 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-X, free).

Data on payroll employment, earnings and hours for November will be released on January 28, 2010.

For more information, or to order data, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-866-873-8788; 613-951-4090; labour@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about revisions, concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Danielle Zietsma (613-951-4243), Labour Statistics Division.

Table 1

Average weekly earnings (including overtime) for all employees
Industry Group (North American Industry Classification System) October 2008 September 2009r October 2009p September to October 2009 October 2008 to October 2009
  Seasonally adjusted
  $ % change
Industrial aggregate 818.36 828.51 831.17 0.3 1.6
Forestry, logging and support 930.52 871.05 923.34 6.0 -0.8
Mining and quarrying, and oil and gas extraction 1,544.02 1,553.82 1,549.11 -0.3 0.3
Utilities 1,417.95 1,566.33 1,573.13 0.4 10.9
Construction 1,058.09 1,031.68 1,054.51 2.2 -0.3
Manufacturing 940.78 949.70 923.34 -2.8 -1.9
Wholesale trade 976.06 947.51 997.25 5.2 2.2
Retail trade 479.72 499.01 499.33 0.1 4.1
Transportation and warehousing 884.30 858.36 858.64 0.0 -2.9
Information and cultural industries 990.84 1,122.52 1,058.66 -5.7 6.8
Finance and insurance 990.81 991.54 1,060.04 6.9 7.0
Real estate and rental and leasing 782.18 748.84 768.27 2.6 -1.8
Professional, scientific and technical services 1,106.64 1,119.10 1,125.99 0.6 1.7
Management of companies and enterprises 1,040.39 1,190.64 1,217.13 2.2 17.0
Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services 701.76 674.51 675.21 0.1 -3.8
Educational services 875.74 900.15 901.92 0.2 3.0
Health care and social assistance 759.83 775.94 767.93 -1.0 1.1
Arts, entertainment and recreation 489.04 529.54 524.07 -1.0 7.2
Accommodation and food services 336.67 340.52 342.95 0.7 1.9
Other services (excluding public administration) 669.97 671.40 692.52 3.1 3.4
Public administration 1,040.22 1,084.81 1,084.05 -0.1 4.2
Provinces and territories          
Newfoundland and Labrador 775.31 795.70 810.87 1.9 4.6
Prince Edward Island 670.24 700.56 705.11 0.6 5.2
Nova Scotia 725.01 739.61 735.05 -0.6 1.4
New Brunswick 740.22 761.08 756.42 -0.6 2.2
Quebec 762.60 764.02 767.62 0.5 0.7
Ontario 844.80 854.08 857.05 0.3 1.5
Manitoba 754.40 785.08 789.85 0.6 4.7
Saskatchewan 794.86 809.13 815.22 0.8 2.6
Alberta 930.75 952.64 953.69 0.1 2.5
British Columbia 794.46 798.51 805.57 0.9 1.4
Yukon 848.61 905.24 909.02 0.4 7.1
Northwest Territories¹ 1,119.13 1,156.15 1,157.96 0.2 3.5
Nunavut¹ 904.77 871.37 867.30 -0.5 -4.1
revised
preliminary
Data not seasonally adjusted.

Table 2

Number of employees
Industry Group (North American Industry Classification System) December 2008 October 2008 September 2009r October 2009p September to October 2009 October 2008 to October 2009 December 2008 to October 2009
  Seasonally adjusted
  thousands % change
Industrial aggregate 14,800.4 14,913.9 14,486.5 14,521.0 0.2 -2.6 -1.9
Forestry, logging and support 44.7 46.8 40.2 39.3 -2.2 -16.0 -12.1
Mining and quarrying, and oil and gas extraction 203.5 209.0 172.6 171.1 -0.9 -18.1 -15.9
Utilities 122.7 121.5 116.6 117.3 0.6 -3.5 -4.4
Construction 817.7 847.8 797.3 800.3 0.4 -5.6 -2.1
Manufacturing 1,599.6 1,646.2 1,454.1 1,448.9 -0.4 -12.0 -9.4
Wholesale trade 753.7 760.1 722.9 721.3 -0.2 -5.1 -4.3
Retail trade 1,884.0 1,902.8 1,851.3 1,851.2 0.0 -2.7 -1.7
Transportation and warehousing 696.7 697.2 668.2 666.5 -0.3 -4.4 -4.3
Information and cultural industries 326.3 327.5 317.3 316.0 -0.4 -3.5 -3.2
Finance and insurance 666.4 674.3 671.3 673.3 0.3 -0.1 1.0
Real estate and rental and leasing 246.8 251.8 244.4 240.7 -1.5 -4.4 -2.5
Professional, scientific and technical services 766.6 768.9 732.7 732.6 0.0 -4.7 -4.4
Management of companies and enterprises 121.3 124.4 111.6 115.2 3.2 -7.4 -5.0
Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services 754.2 768.5 713.0 713.4 0.1 -7.2 -5.4
Educational services 1,147.5 1,141.5 1,135.8 1,155.8 1.8 1.3 0.7
Health care and social assistance 1,567.2 1,543.2 1,584.5 1,599.1 0.9 3.6 2.0
Arts, entertainment and recreation 242.1 246.7 251.8 251.3 -0.2 1.9 3.8
Accommodation and food services 1,095.3 1,091.0 1,064.6 1,062.3 -0.2 -2.6 -3.0
Other services (excluding public administration) 510.5 512.6 506.4 503.0 -0.7 -1.9 -1.5
Public administration 1,024.4 1,018.6 1,056.7 1,054.0 -0.3 3.5 2.9
Provinces and territories              
Newfoundland and Labrador 192.4 193.1 191.4 193.1 0.9 0.0 0.4
Prince Edward Island 61.5 61.9 63.5 62.9 -0.9 1.6 2.3
Nova Scotia 393.0 397.3 392.0 392.0 0.0 -1.3 -0.3
New Brunswick 311.0 314.8 309.1 309.4 0.1 -1.7 -0.5
Quebec 3,393.1 3,414.9 3,365.6 3,372.1 0.2 -1.3 -0.6
Ontario 5,671.0 5,714.0 5,547.9 5,553.2 0.1 -2.8 -2.1
Manitoba 562.8 567.6 555.4 552.6 -0.5 -2.6 -1.8
Saskatchewan 439.9 437.6 437.9 437.3 -0.1 -0.1 -0.6
Alberta 1,789.8 1,803.5 1,711.5 1,713.5 0.1 -5.0 -4.3
British Columbia 1,935.0 1,952.0 1,880.6 1,877.3 -0.2 -3.8 -3.0
Yukon 19.5 19.4 19.0 19.0 0.0 -2.1 -2.6
Northwest Territories¹ 26.8 27.5 27.7 27.1 -2.2 -1.5 1.1
Nunavut¹ 10.1 10.8 10.7 11.1 3.7 2.8 9.9
revised
preliminary
Data not seasonally adjusted.