Those of you who have been reading my blog for several years will know that I went from annoyance to frustration to anger back to annoyance with how government’s portray the monthly labour force data coming out of Statistics Canada. In good months, it’s all “our plan is working” and “this shows the policies we have put in place are providing good jobs for New Brunswickers” yadda yadda yadda. Then when things turn badly (see below), they either talk about the year-over-year data or they eventually (like the former government) just try and ignore the numbers all together.
The Libs fell into the same trap. They crowed last year about the great job creation. The Premier talked at length about it in his SOTP. But everyone who even looks at this stuff in a cursory fashion couldn’t square the plant closures with the jobs data. We may now be starting to see the filtering of the forestry troubles into the economy at large. I don’t have access to the sector-specific stuff – the media does – I have to pay for it, it would be interesting to see what the sector specific data looks like.
You can be sure that the Minister tomorrow won’t be saying that the job creation over the month proves the self-sufficiency agenda is working.
But again, live by the sword – die by the sword. The numbers may turn up again next month. What we do know is that over time 3-4-5-10 years – our employment growth – private sector – is one of the worst in Canada.
