Labour Market Bulletin Greater Toronto Region
Labour Market Bulletin, Second Quarter 2006
An Analysis of the Greater Toronto Region Labour Market
Service Canada
An overview of the Greater Toronto Region (GTR) Statistics Canada Economic Region 530 - It consists of the City of Toronto plus the surrounding regions of Durham, York, Peel and Halton (excluding Burlington). This area includes the municipalities of Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa, Clarington, Uxbridge, Scugog, Brock, Georgina, East Gwillimbury, Whitchurch-Stouffville, Newmarket, Aurora, King, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham, Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon, Halton Hills, Milton and Oakville.
Employment normally rises in the 2nd quarter of the year, and in the Greater Toronto Region (GTR), employment rose by 2.7% in the April to June period. The number of new jobs slightly exceeded growth in the labour force. This reduced the number of unemployed people by almost 4,000 compared to the 1st quarter. The unemployment rate in the GTR decreased to 6.3% from 6.6% in the January to March quarter.
Since the 2nd quarter of 2005, employment in the GTR increased by 47,000 (+ 1.6%) to 2,966,000. Over the same period the population aged 15 and over increased by 101,000 but the labour force (those working or looking for work) increased by only 14,000. This is due to a drop of just over one percentage point in the labour force participation rate from 70.1% in the 2nd quarter of 2005 to 68.9% in the 2nd quarter of 2006. Given a working age population approaching 4.6-million in the GTR, a drop of this magnitude makes a large difference in the available labour force. The number of unemployed people in the Region declined by 33,000 over the past year, improving the unemployment rate to 6.3%, from 7.4% in the 2nd quarter of 2005. Over the past year, employment rose in the services-producing sector of the economy while employment fell in the goods-producing sector.
Highlights:
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Natural gas power plant under construction in Brampton.
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Two office towers announced for downtown Toronto
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24 bridging programs available for the internationally trained
The complete Labour Market Bulletin, including these Highlights, is available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, print version (size: 179 kb)
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