BC can't seem to bust out of its unemployment slump. Mixed economic data about the global economy seems to have made B.C. business owners increasingly cautious. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business business barometer has shown that B.C. small businesses have grown increasingly pessimistic about their future prospects. The B.C. index hit a three-year low in July as global economic concerns persisted.
According to Statistics Canada data compiled by BC Stats, unemployment has hovered around 7% so far this year, temporarily hitting monthly lows of 6.3% in April and June. While unemployment has generally been dropping each year since rising to 7.7% in 2009, it has yet to fall below 6% since then.
Recent surveys have suggested that employers may be increasing their payrolls in the coming months. A BMO survey released in May suggested the majority (55%) of business owners in B.C. plan to hire new employees this year and expand their payrolls at a greater rate than they did in 2011.
Manpower's Employment Outlook Survey released in June suggested Surrey businesses were among the most likely to increase staff in the third quarter with 27% indicating positive hiring intentions, followed by businesses in Richmond (24%), Vancouver (16%) and Burnaby-Coquitlam (10%).
Manpower's survey suggested key areas of job growth in Western Canada would be in the transportation and public utilities sector, public administration, mining, manufacturing, finance, real estate and construction.
To date, job growth in those sectors has remained mixed in B.C. While the number of people employed in manufacturing, finance and public administration has edged up so far this year, it remains down in the apparent growth sectors of utilities, construction and transportation. In fact, nearly 10,000 jobs have been lost in the transportation sector since January and 20,000 in B.C.'s construction sector.
Whether more jobs in those sectors will be forthcoming remains to be seen, but let's hope they haven't reported overly optimistic hiring intentions. •
