When it comes to employment growth, the Canadian and Ontario economies are still growing relatively robustly despite nearly a year of Bank rate increases that aim to cool off the economy and inflation. The accompanying figure presents the percent change in total employment (monthly data, three-month moving average, not seasonally adjusted) across Ontario and its main economic regions over two recent time periods: May 2022 to May 2023 (over one year) and January 2023 to May 2023 (the last five months). The results suggest overall robust growth but with some major differences across the province.
Year over year (May 2022 to May 2023), employment in Ontario as a whole has grown nearly 2 percent with the period from January 2023 to May 2023 growing at just below 1.5 percent. Year over year growth was highest in Windsor-Sarnia (9 percent) followed by the Kitchener-Waterloo-Barrie area (7 percent), Muskoka-Kawartha (5 percent) and then the Northwest (4 percent). Toronto and Ottawa also saw growth year over year at about 2 percent respectively. The latter two account for most of the job creation in Ontario despite the lower growth rate because well over half of Ontario employment is in these two cities.
What does stand out in these employment growth numbers is that some parts of Ontario are not doing as well as others. Kingston-Pembroke, Hamilton-Niagara, London and Northeastern Ontario have seen employment decline both year-over-year and since January of this year. While Windsor is up significantly year-over-year, it turns out that 2023 has seen much slower growth. Stratford-Bruce is down year-over-year but there has been growth in 2023. Then there is Northwestern Ontario which appears to be in the midst of a relatively strong employment surge.
So, overall Ontario is still booming. Over the period 2006 to 2023, average annual monthly employment growth has been approximately 1.2 percent so growth rates in the 1.5 to 2 percent range mean Ontario as a whole is still doing exceptionally well. True, these growth rates are down from the immediate rebound of the post pandemic era but overall since May of 2022 Ontario has added 144,000 jobs which averages to about 12,000 jobs a month - well above historical performance. On average, since 2006 Ontario has added about 7500 jobs a month. As for the regions exhibiting slowdowns in employment creation, they are in many respects areas where longer-term economic and employment growth has consistently been a challenge with the exception of the Northwest which seems to be seeing a robust uptick rooted in forestry, mining and tourism as well as public sector construction.
So, with the first half of 2023 nearly done, it appears Ontario overall is in good shape.