I posted a blog last week on the employment by occupation data from Statistics Canada. I looked at the last five years of Lord versus the last five years of the Liberal administration. The reason for this was simple. McKenna had to fight through a serious recession in the early 1990s. In fact, during the middle and late 1990s, the Liberals were still forced to constrain costs while Lord has served under an unprecedented level of Equalization and Federal Transfers growth.
Today, I looked at Employment by Industry and the data even surprised me.
Click here to view the chart.
As with the occupation data last week, this data confirms that there were 7,000 more jobs created under the Libs than the Tories but that’s not what is surprising.
What was surprising was that when you back out public sector jobs, the job creation under the Libs was more than double the current Tory regime.
But even more surprising to me (as I guy who worked to attract call centres), when you back out the growth in that sector (business services), the net job creation rate under the Tories is only 2,200 net new employment over five years compared to 19,300 under the Libs.
Now I backed out that sector because most of us that know the sector realize that it is peaking in its employment levels – there may be a thousand or so jobs to go but then it will peak and maybe decline.
So when the call centres run out, can we expect only 2,200 new jobs every five years?
Don’t forget that the government is spending $2 billion more now than in 1999. That should have generated thousands of private sector jobs.
But I can’t find them.
Construction jobs grew under the Libs, fell under the Tories.
Manufacturing jobs grew under the Libs, fell under Tories
And my personal favour, the Information, Culture and Recreation sector – the heart of the new economy – up 13.2% under the Libs – 1% under the Tories.
Jobs, oh jobs, where art thou?