More Local Labour Market Information
Labour Market Bulletin, First Quarter 2005
An Analysis of the Peel, Halton and Dufferin Area Labour Market
Human Resource Centre of Canada
An overview of the Halton, Dufferin and Peel areas
The labour market in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) continued to soften in the first quarter of 2005. The CMA includes most of the Halton, Dufferin and Peel area, as well as York Region and Toronto . Employment fell for a second quarter, dropping by 33,300 this quarter, with the loss entirely in full-time employment. The unemployment rate edged up to 7.3% compared to 7.1% in the fourth quarter of 2004. Employment losses were heaviest in manufacturing, and business, building and other support services. Employment rose in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing with continued low interest rates providing a favourable environment.
Year-over-year employment growth has been weak, with the addition of 20,000 jobs to bring the employed workforce to 2,673,000. This represented an increase of 0.8%, which was well below the average of 2.2% for 2004. Employment growth has been mostly in the services-producing sector of the economy.
Even when overall employment growth is weak, the labour market continues to generate a large number of advertised and non-advertised job openings. Companies constantly recruit staff due to normal turnover and retirements. Turnover is highest in retail trade and consumer services.
Highlights:
- City of Brampton limits building permits in an effort to control residential growth.
- Boeing announces the closing of its Malton plant, placing 350 people out of work..
- Low demand for the Freestar minivan results in a shift reduction at the Ford Oakville plant. However, the company anticipates that its new flexible production facility, due to open in late 2006, will boost output in Oakville .
- Loblaws will close its Mississauga warehouse, affecting about 800 employees.
- Henkel Canada Corporation of Brampton will close its plant at the end of 2005, affecting 140 workers.
The complete Labour Market Bulletin, including these Highlights, is available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, print version (size: 274 kb)
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