Employment numbers climbing; social assistance caseload down

Not only have the number of seasonally adjusted jobs increased by almost 10,000 over last month, but the number of people receiving social assistance in this province is the lowest its been in five years, said Human Resources and Employment Minister Julie Bettney.

Minister Bettney was referring to the Statistics Canada October Labour Force Survey which reported that seasonally adjusted employment in Newfoundland and Labrador has increased by 9,900 between September and October. "The employment gains over the past two months have more than offset all of the losses during July and August," said Minister Bettney.

With the increase in October, employment in Newfoundland has grown by 4.2 per cent since the start of the year, back on track with the growth observed before the summer months. The employment gains from September to October were broadly based with both goods and service producing industries recording job gains. Higher investment, growth in offshore oil production and related services, and economic diversification may all be playing a role in this growth.

"Actual employment in October was 5.4 per cent higher than a year earlier with the addition of 10,700 jobs," said Minister Bettney. The year-over-year employment gains were led by the community, business and personal services, manufacturing and construction industries. The construction industry is benefitting from a high level of investment by the public and private sectors including hospital developments, road construction, the university centre, the Terra Nova project and various commercial developments.

The greater availability of work encouraged a higher participation rate in the labour force. "The participation rate, which is the percentage of the working age population who are either working or actively searching for work, was 56 per cent in October, an increase of 3.8 percentage points from last October," the minister explained. "This was the strongest increase of any province and large enough to cause the labour force to expand at an even faster rate than employment. Consequently, the unemployment rate increased to 16.4 per cent from 15.8."

Minister Bettney added that the social assistance caseload for the month of October was 31,672, while the number of actual recipients was 62,846. This is the lowest the caseload has been since October and November 1993 and the third time in four months that it has been less than 32,000.

There are a number of factors which contributed to this decline, namely active employment measures which include post TAGS employment programs, increased job opportunities, increased enforcement measures, an aging population and out-migration.

"All in all, this is very positive news for the province," concluded Minster Bettney.

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