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Canada: Job Stats vs Job security

The issue of job security in Canada can very well be decided in the Toronto region itself. The City of Toronto has a population of 2.8 million people, making it Canada’s largest city and the fourth largest urban population area in North America. The city’s GDP of 155.9 billion dollars accounts for a full 26.0% of the GDP of Ontario, and represents 9.5% of Canada’s output. City of Toronto jobs, along with those in the surrounding metro area, are likewise a microcosm of the country as a whole.

These and other latest stats from the Toronto Employment & Labour Market Information (TELMI) also show that job security for citizens hasn’t changed much, and is still restricted mostly to the government and institutional sectors. While part-time Toronto jobs are growing fast, the good news is that government sector employment in Toronto is also growing steadily.

Canada and Toronto Full-Time vs Part-Time Jobs

The TELMI data shows 1,422,280 Toronto jobs making up a significant part of the total Canadian labor force of nearly 19 million. The full-time jobs Toronto supports have exceeded 1 million for the fifth consecutive year, while the number of part-time jobs Toronto supports has increased 7.3% in the last year, an addition of 344,350 jobs.

Toronto Employment Highlights

Another indicator of the new normal is the lack of manufacturing jobs growth. The Office category now tops the charts in terms of employment, accounting for nearly 1 out of every 2 jobs (49%). The institutional sector comes in a distant second at 16% and the service sector is in third place for supporting 12% of the jobs. The retail jobs Toronto supports account for another 10%, and manufacturing has fallen to single digits at 9%.

All told, the number of jobs Toronto has increased by 2.7% over the last year, representing 37,870 jobs. This is a fast pace of growth, considering that the number of jobs in Toronto has increased by a total of only 12.7% in the last decade. What all this data shows is a trend towards growth in temporary need-based employment in the Toronto region, and a lot of this is part-time and seasonal. The long term full-time jobs, which are typically created by the manufacturing sector, is growing nowhere near as fast as the other sectors.

Government Jobs and Job Security in Toronto

The best place to seek job security in Toronto and Canada at the moment is with the government and reputed institutions. The institutional and government jobs Toronto supports account for 12.8% of all employment in the city. In fact, the Government and Institutional industries grew by 3,440 jobs or 1.9% last year. Since 2011, Government and Institutional industries have added 8,870 jobs, a growth of 5.1%.

You can also seek job security in the tea leaves, based on projections for future job growth. For example, the TELMI projections show that the City of Toronto will hit total employment of 1,640,000 jobs by 2031 and 1,720,000 jobs by 2041. So the City will add an approximate 7,000 jobs per year for a long time to come, unless outside circumstances intervene to cause another downtown or global recession.

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