Jobs: Ottawa gains as the country loses

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The Ottawa area added 900 jobs last month, lowering the city's unemployment rate at a time when the national rate is increasing.

Photograph by : The Ottawa Citizen


OTTAWA — The unemployment rate in Ottawa-Gatineau fell in November as the economy generated 900 more jobs despite the threat of a global economic recession.
Statistics Canada reported Friday that the rate dropped 0.2 per cent to 4.7 per cent, the lowest rate in a year.
Employment in the capital region hit a new record high of 678,400 jobs on the back of seven months of uninterrupted growth that has now reached 15,300 jobs.
Despite waves of layoffs in a technology sector hit by the global troubles, the combination of strong public sector employment, high household incomes and spending is keeping the economy moving, even though there are growing signs of weakness in the housing sector.
All the job growth was in Ottawa, which gained 2,000 jobs in November while Gatineau shed 1,200 jobs.
The number of people reporting that they were unemployed fell to 33,400, down 1,200 and the lowest level since March.
But across the country, StatsCan said the economy lost ground.
Following little change in October, employment fell by 71,000 in November, with the decrease split between full- and part-time work. The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 6.3 per cent.
The employment declines were concentrated in Ontario — down 66,000 — where there was a large drop in full-time work.
The manufacturing sector was hard hit in November, with a net employment drop of 38,000. This brings manufacturing declines to 388,000 since the peak in 2002. In Ontario, the employment declines in this sector totalled 42,000 in November.
In the first 11 months of 2008, national employment increased by 0.8 per cent (up 133,000), a slower pace of growth compared with the 2.2 per cent (up 361,000) observed during the same period in 2007.