Employment

So much for predicting the future! In a week where most economists were predicting that Canada added jobs in October, turns out we lost jobs. The good news is that we added full time jobs and lost part time retail jobs. That may be because of the high Canadian dollar, and more Canadians possibly crossing the border to by cheaper American goods. Have we observed an increase in cross border traffic? Are fewer Americans coming to Canada? American unemployment is substantially higher than Canada, but then again they have a left wing government and we have a right of center government. We also had great employment numbers in September and August, so we are still ahead for the period of the last 3 months.

I was disappointed to see the numbers, but the sky is not falling. Retail numbers should rebound for Christmas shopping. Again I encourage people to get out and shop, but be frugal. I expect Liberals to cry some foul over the Stats Canada report, but the canaries weren't singing when we were adding jobs. In instances where pandemic hysteria grips the public, retail is one of the first sectors hit. I remember SARS. The Canadian media was pumping swine flu as a crisis and we lost almost 40,000 retail jobs. Hence the moral hazard in sensationalizing an unsensational virus in order to sell a few extra newspapers.

"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why what he predicted yesterday didn't happen today."