Statistics Canada Reports II

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Ralph Klein was an asshole...

what was his quote about "dinosaur farts"?
A true Canadian gem

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

It's a pretty assholish move for a city administration to ship homeless people (and in the Excited States, illegal aliens) from one city to another.

Has anyone figured out a solution to the rising number of homeless individuals and especially, junkies? I doubt it, since they seem to be everywhere: in big cities and small towns, and across all the countries that I have visited, even Scandinavian cities.

The country with the best record of reducing homeless numbers is probably Finland. There was an uptick in 2024 and 2025, but it's still under 5,000 across the entire country, with 1,167 counted as living outside, in hostels or in shelters. There are about 5.5m people in Finland. Helsinki has only one shelter with 50 beds because that's all they need now. Denmark has also significantly reduced numbers of homeless. Here's a piece from the CBC about the Finnish policy, which is as much a financial policy as it is anything else.

[someone123]

We have also seen some areas of Canada that used to have very little homelessness backslide in recent years. It correlates closely with rooming houses/SROs being redeveloped or gentrified, rents rising, and public housing and shelter developments not keeping up with population growth.

I do think that in a free country there will always be a little bit of frictional transitional homelessness or people who prefer some kind of lifestyle resembling homelessness. There will also be a certain number of people who can't look after themselves and some will engage in criminal activity and/or have such severe mental illness they are a danger to the public. But it's a lot smaller than the total number of homeless during the housing crisis in Canada.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Economy adds 88,000 jobs as unemployment rate falls to 6.6%: StatCan

The labour market rebounded with a surprise gain of 88,000 jobs in May, partially offsetting a bigger drop in employment since the start of the year, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The agency said the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 per cent in May, down from 6.9 per cent in April.

StatCan said May’s gains were the first significant increase in employment since November 2025. The economy had shed 112,000 net jobs in the first four months of 2026.

[MolsonExport]

Can't wait for the barking dog to spin this as something negative to pin on Carney (or maybe Trudeau...he's still living in the past).

[Taeolas]

The article itself gives something for the Cons to latch onto. The first four months of the year we lost ~100,000 jobs, so this recovery is "only" 80% of what we lost.

Despite the fact that when you look at full time jobs, most of this growth is apparently ALL full timers and it completely erased the full time jobs lost.

Very rosy numbers indeed.

Especially when you compare to the States. They also just released their numbers and they added 127,000 jobs. Sounds like a big number.... but a country with 1/10 their population nearly matched their job growth. Comparing the two, I'd say Canada's situation was rosier than the US's.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Can't wait for the barking dog to spin this as something negative to pin on Carney (or maybe Trudeau...he's still living in the past).

PeePee will undoubtedly clarify for us that this is actually catastrophic news and that we are still in a life ending recession. And with me being so naive as to think Canada has been showing impressive resilience in the face of Trump's turmoil.

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Didn't Calgary ship a couple busloads of homeless people to BC for the 88 Olympics?

I do see a lot of people hitchhiking west in the summer, can't say I see as much going east. Anyway, the vast majority of homeless or addicted people in a city are from that city. No question.

I thought homeless people with any kind of ways and means usually made their way to the coast to get into the milder winters.

[jc_yyc_ca]

After higher than average unemployment in Alberta for the past few years, it's settling in at the national average. Most of this was due to the population growth slowing down. In previous years employment was having trouble keeping up with extra high population growth, but now it's settling down.
Alberta’s unemployment rate drops in May, now on par with national rate

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/a...ps-in-may-now-on-par-with-national-rate/

[Coldrsx]

[jc_yyc_ca]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Interesting chart. This is why I don't tend to get overly concerned over unemployment rates. They're a general indicator, but like most stats or rates, they don't always tell the story. You can have high job growth as shown in the case for Calgary, but also a high unemployment rate if the workforce population is also rapidly increasing.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

The article itself gives something for the Cons to latch onto. The first four months of the year we lost ~100,000 jobs, so this recovery is "only" 80% of what we lost.

Despite the fact that when you look at full time jobs, most of this growth is apparently ALL full timers and it completely erased the full time jobs lost.

Very rosy numbers indeed.

If it's June and we're not in the positive for jobs created for 2026 it's not that great even if May is one month of good news.

-112,000 +88,000 = still -24,000 jobs nationwide for the year
I mean then you gotta dig deeper into how much these jobs pay and are they all FTE (full time equivalent)

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Wigs

If it's June and we're not in the positive for jobs created for 2026 it's not that great even if May is one month of good news.

-112,000 +88,000 = still -24,000 jobs nationwide for the year
I mean then you gotta dig deeper into how much these jobs pay and are they all FTE (full time equivalent)

Amazing that employment has held up this well given the situation at the neighbour's.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by Wigs

If it's June and we're not in the positive for jobs created for 2026 it's not that great even if May is one month of good news.

-112,000 +88,000 = still -24,000 jobs nationwide for the year
I mean then you gotta dig deeper into how much these jobs pay and are they all FTE (full time equivalent)

We need to stop getting worked up about monthly statistics. Doom scrolling headlines are ruining the world. We need to remember the context of Canada contracting in population. We don’t need to create as many jobs. The RBC Chief Economist said it well on CBC. 25,000 people per month retire. We could lose 10,000 jobs per month without the employment rate changing right now. It’s the same with GDP growth. For a long time it was propped up by population growth. Now it’s not.

Not to say we don’t want growth, but all statistics have other statistics.

[WayneShuster]

Originally Posted by trueviking

We need to stop getting worked up about monthly statistics. Doom scrolling headlines are ruining the world. We need to remember the context of Canada contracting in population. We don’t need to create as many jobs. The RBC Chief Economist said it well on CBC. 25,000 people per month retire. We could lose 10,000 jobs per month without the employment rate changing right now. It’s the same with GDP growth. For a long time it was propped up by population growth. Now it’s not.

Not to say we don’t want growth, but all statistics have other statistics.

Well stated. Fully agree. The scaremongering by media outlets who pander to negativity is outright shameful.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Amazing that employment has held up this well given the situation at the neighbour's.

Good point. That leader is a pox on the planet!

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by WayneShuster

Well stated. Fully agree. The scaremongering by media outlets who pander to negativity is outright shameful.

+1

The quality of mainstream Canadian media has nose dived. Instead of transparency, seeking the truth, and having journalistic integrity they're constantly in attack mode. They make a mountain out of a molehill, sometimes outright manufacturer a problem where there isn't one, then pat themselves on the back for a job well done like they've uncovered some evil being kept from us. They've become a mouthpiece for MAGA talking points/fascists, rarely challenge those abhorrent views with any vigour/purpose, then have the gall to argue its in the name of journalistic balance.

Mainstream media fuel anger, hatred, distrust, divide Canadian society, and have turned many against their own country, our Constitution, and our institutions. They're a disgrace, massively failing us, and have done all Canadians a disservice. Shame on you CTV, Global, CBC, CityTV, National Post, Sun Media, etc. DO YOUR JOB!

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by trueviking

We need to stop getting worked up about monthly statistics. Doom scrolling headlines are ruining the world. We need to remember the context of Canada contracting in population. We don’t need to create as many jobs. The RBC Chief Economist said it well on CBC. 25,000 people per month retire. We could lose 10,000 jobs per month without the employment rate changing right now. It’s the same with GDP growth. For a long time it was propped up by population growth. Now it’s not.

Not to say we don’t want growth, but all statistics have other statistics.

Yeah, but the statistic underlying all of this is terrible productivity.

[someone123]

I think a good outcome is actually not a huge mystery, or at least we can say we should be able to track some trends to catch red flags:

- Inflation within target range of around 2%
- Real GDP per capita grows by 1-3% per year
- Wages keep pace and affordability improves across classes of goods and assets people want (like food, shelter, clothing)
- Population moderately grows to help reduce impact of Baby Boom demographics (1% per year range, maybe 2% if things are going well); births are a component of this that matters, or at least those who want kids can have them
- People remain happy and healthy according to broad metrics

Sure there will be blips but Canada hasn't been doing well for around 10 years now, and there's been a tendency to invent a sequence of excuses for why things look bad right now (GFC, oil prices, climate change, the US, covid).

[theman23]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think a good outcome is actually not a huge mystery, or at least we can say we should be able to track some trends to catch red flags:

- Inflation within target range of around 2%
- Real GDP per capita grows by 1-3% per year
- Wages keep pace and affordability improves across classes of goods and assets people want (like food, shelter, clothing)
- Population moderately grows to help reduce impact of Baby Boom demographics (1% per year range, maybe 2% if things are going well); births are a component of this that matters, or at least those who want kids can have them
- People remain happy and healthy according to broad metrics

Sure there will be blips but Canada hasn't been doing well for around 10 years now, and there's been a tendency to invent a sequence of excuses for why things look bad right now (GFC, oil prices, climate change, the US, covid).

Not that it’s a model necessarily for us to follow, but to act as a point of reference the prosperity gap we had with Australia has completely flipped against our favour over the last 10 years and I don’t think anyone expects that gap to narrow (let alone revert) within the next 10, 20, or even 30 years. Those OECD forecasts that predicted we’d be bottom of the barrel in GDP per capita by 2060 are very much tracking. These aren’t month to month variations - none of us are going to see things get better within our life times with the way things are going.