Ontario Public Sector Employment down 55,500 Jobs

New Statistics Canada figures indicate that public sector employment in Ontario fell another 7,400 jobs in May.

As a result, public sector employment is now down 55,500 jobs since April 2011. That is a decline of 4%.

Trade unionists have long warned that government austerity would bring mass job loss to the public sector and these figures appear to bear that out.

Austerity isn't doing much for private sector employment either. Since April 2011, there has been a total private sector job growth of 1%. Worse, Ontario lost 26,900 private sector jobs in May.

Total employment in the province has increased 18,800 -- or 0.3% since April 2011.

With the modest private sector job increase being more than cancelled by the much sharper decline in public sector jobs, all of that increase is accounted for by an extra 27,400 'self employed' people in Ontario. (Which, in some cases, is not much different from unemployment.)

Class of worker	2011		2012
Class of worker	April	May	April	May
Total employed, all classes of workers	6,743.00	6,728.90	6,780.50	6,761.80
Public sector employees	1,362.00	1,353.80	1,313.90	1,306.50
Private sector employees	4,351.00	4,338.40	4,424.80	4,397.90
Self-employed	1,030.00	1,036.70	1,041.70	1,057.40

Thousands of employees. Source: Statistics Canada Cansim 282-0089

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