Toronto Workforce Innovation Group Newsletter January 2012

TWIG Highlights

Dear colleagues and friends,

The Toronto Workforce Innovation Group is happy to introduce a new addition to its online family-a portal with centralized practical and accessible information about key sectors in the Toronto economy. The information is tailored to the needs of newcomers and immigrants. Welcome to www.routestoemployment.ca.
We will be happy to receive your feedback.
Please find a moment and fill out our Survey.

Labour Force Survey

The Daily
Statistics Canada
January 6, 2012

In Ontario, employment edged up by 16,000, bringing growth since December 2010 to 1.4% (+91,000). The unemployment rate in the province was 7.7% in December, down 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier.

Toronto Economic Indicators

City of Toronto
January 6, 2012

The unemployment rate for City of Toronto residents increased from 9.1% in November to 9.7% in December 2011. The number of employed City of Toronto residents increased by 11,400 over November 2011. This is the sixth consecutive month in which the number of employed residents increased on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis. In December 2011 the participation rate was 65.4% and the emplyment rate of City residents aged 15+ years increased slightly from 58.6% in November to 59% in December 2011.

TIEDI Labour Force Update: TORONTO CMA

Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative 
January 6, 2012

A comparison of the Toronto CMA labour market in December 2010 and December 2011 shows that job gains benefited immigrants more than Canadian-born. Immigrants gained 63,800 jobs both in the service-producing sector (44,900 jobs) and in the goods-producing sector (18,900 jobs). Notable job gains were in accommodation and food services (12,400 jobs), construction (12,200 jobs) and in professional, scientific and technical services (12,000 jobs). Large job losses for immigrants were found in trade (15,800 jobs), information, culture and recreation (3,200 jobs) and agriculture (2,200 jobs).

Quantity and quality of jobs falling in tandem

CIBC Economics
Benjamin Tal
January 25, 2012

The pace of job creation in Canada is weak. In fact, on a three-month moving average basis, the job market is currently weaker than any nonrecessionary period according to CIBC. The sharp softening in the job market in the second half of 2011 made the past year a highly asymmetrical one in terms of job creation—with the first six months accounting for almost all the jobs created during the year. The impact of a softening pace of job creation is exacerbated by a worsening level of job quality in the Canadian labour market. CIBC's index of employment quality focuses on three quality measures: part-time/full-time distribution, the composition of paid employment and self-employment, and the relative compensation of a given full-time paid employment job. By province, the largest drop was observed in Ontario, followed by British Columbia.

Immigrants

Immigrant labour market outcomes in Canada: The benefits of addressing wage and employment gaps

RBC Economics Research
December 2011

It is well recognized that immigrants to Canada have higher unemployment rates and lower wages than Canadian-born workers. This report provides an estimate of the size of the aggregate immigrant earnings gap, accounting for immigrants’ stronger profile of observable characteristics, and discusses possible reasons for immigrants’ poorer labour market outcomes. The research suggests that gaps may be due to both genuine skill differences between immigrants and Canadian-born workers, and labour market inefficiencies that prevent immigrants from making full use of their skills. In either case, there could be room to improve on immigrant outcomes through more extensive language training, faster credential recognition, or other integration initiatives. More rigorous evaluation of existing programs would also be helpful in understanding why gaps persist and how we can best address them.

Youth

New Essay Competition Challenges Global Shapers to Tackle Youth Unemployment

World Economic Forum
News Release 
January 24, 2012

• More than 1.2 billion young people to enter labour market in the next 10 years; only 300 million jobs await.
• Global Shapers are extraordinary individuals from around the world aged between 20 and 30.
• A new worldwide essay competition will tap into the ideas and energy of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Shapers Community in order to tackle the growing youth unemployment crisis. According to the World Economic Forum, the Global Shapers, a worldwide network of people aged between 20 and 30 who have demonstrated huge potential for future leadership, will present their ideas through “The Youth Jobs Innovation Challenge”. “They will answer the question: What can I and the global community do to create jobs for my generation?,” the Forum stated.The competition will run until February 20, 2012

Other News

Resources

Paid and unpaid work over three generations

Statistics Canada
Katherine Marshall
December, 2011

The study examines the profile and the  time spent on paid and unpaid work for young adults from three generations—late  baby boomers (born from 1957 to 1966) when they were age 20 to 29 in 1986,  Generation X (1969 to 1978) which was in that age group in 1998, and Generation  Y (1981 to 1990) which reached it in 2010. Young adults from Generation Y were  more likely to be single (67%), living at home (51%), and going to school (19%)  compared with their counterparts in the two previous generations. Time spent on employment and housework  was also most alike for young men and women of Generation Y. At ages 20 to 29,  late baby boom men did, on average, 1.4 hours more paid work per day than  women. In Generation Y, this difference had narrowed to 1.1 hours. When late baby boomer women were age  20 to 29, they did 1.2 hours more housework per day than men. By the time  Generation Y was the same age, the difference had narrowed to 0.4 hours. Average daily time spent on paid work and housework by men and women in young  dual-earner couples is more alike for those without children and particularly  so for Generation Y.