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Calgary & Alberta Economy

In Calgary's case it looks like the smoothing effects are most felt in Q1-Q3. January is the first month of Q1 and you can see that there is some deviation beginning. It has barely any effect on the unemployement figures, at least over the time period in question.

I think I'll do a Calgary-Edmonton-Alberta comparison next.

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Ok, I just want to throw out there again, that I'm not an economist, so I definitely don't know what the common practice around "seasonality" is, but my measure of seasonality is the mean absolute difference between Seasonally Adjusted and Unadjusted Figures over the three year and one month period for which I'm displaying information. Data that's not in percentage terms, I calculated the seasonality percentage relative to the Seasonally Adjusted figures. This is a mean, so in some months the seasonal deviation could be higher.

Also note that the Alberta figures are considerably larger than the CMAs so I put it on a secondary axis for the numerical rather than have the scale turn everything into a bunch of flat lines.

I'd also like to throw out my data references again. CMA data is from CANSIM Table 282-0135 and provincial data is from CANSIM Table 282-0087.

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It'll be interesting to see how many employees this amount to, but no matter how you look at it it's good news either way.
This is much better then luring a company through tax breaks or other hand me out incentives.
I like the strategy of going after companies who are already in the process of looking at increasing a footprint in Canada. Calgary has some good advantages that they can leverage.
 
^^Exactly. The CED is a marketing department. They embellish things all the time. Silicon Valley North is right there. I'd like to know what this office is before I get all excited by this possible fluff piece. Growing companies open small regional marketing offices all the time.

Same with Fintech. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to be the first to cross the finish line. Every city's economic development corporation is capitalizing on it by saying their city (could) be an industry leader. There's just way too much competition out there for Calgary.
 
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Here's an unfortunately downbeat article on the state of the office vacancy rate in the Calgary Herald. At current absorption rates, they say we may not see a new office tower built until 2029. It strikes me as a bit alarmist, but at the same time we all know things are grim. The vacancy rate is pegged at 24% and that's still without Brookfield and Sky. Things will likely be quiet on the office side for some time. If Sky is any example though, I hope we see more mixed use in the future though.

I've updated some of the tables with LFS data from May. Things are looking better provincially than the are locally. The unemployment rate remains above 9% as it has for almost a year now. It's been relatively flat since the gains made largely in Q4 of 2016. As always there's more to it that than that. And thankfully it isn't all bad.

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Calgary's participation rate remains sky high. We do really well as a province. For perspective, the national rate has hovered between 61% and 62% for the same time period as my data set. People want to work around here I guess. And where there's a will, there will eventually be a way.

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Despite the high unemployment figure, Calgary actually still maintains the highest employment rate in my set as well, though Edmonton has made some recent major gains. It's nice to see that these percentages have been climbing pretty consistently for almost a year now.

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So what's driving the increases? Well for one thing, population has continued to grow. Statcan's estimates say Calgary's working population (those aged 15+) has grown by over 100,000 people in the last three and a half years. And by an eye test, it appears that growth has accelerated slightly in the past 3 or 4 months.

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Couple that with the sky high participation rate and you have an overall labour force that's grown by 80,000.

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The number of employed persons is nearly equal to the peak for the observational period. This is just an assumption, but that may be the all time peak. Obviously, there has to be a question of what kind of jobs people are finding. And the answer can't be that they're the same ones as before. Because as the article points out, if the 40,000 downtown office jobs were back, the vacancy rate would be down. I don't think that bears in mind the relocation of Imperial oil out of downtown though, which also occurred during the observational period. So people may not be finding the same jobs, in the same places and likely not with the same pay, but I can't answer that definitively with the data I've got. Maybe I'll poke around for some salary statistics in the future.

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It sucks to end on a bit of a downer. Lots of other key factors have turned corners, but not unemployment itself. The Unemployment line for Calgary looks a heck of a lot like the Unemployment Rate line. Meaning, unemployment growth has kept in pretty close step with labour force growth.

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I do have something new that I'm very happy to share. I've found a new table which has the Part-Time/Full-Time divide at the CMA level. It's only available in an unadjusted seasonal figure so it isn't quite apples-to-apples with the rest of the data I've presented, but it does show the general trend. Over this time period, Full-Time and Part-Time employment have a pretty high negative correlation of -0.62. Meaning the numbers often move in opposition to one another. It's been pretty flat over the past 3.5 years, but lately there's been a move back towards Full-Time Employment.

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Awesome stats Oddball. It's nice to see more than just the unemployment number is that doesn't always tell the whole story, but yeah, it would be nice to see that number go down.
 
Hi Group,

I Wanted to bring up the Topic but am not Sure if the Thread is Appropriate. Not Sure How to Start a Topic so Hope Some can start the Topic
Tnx.
Operater,
 
Hi All,
Not sure Who has Heard the Bad News as Such.

Reed Built Homes has been put Into Bankruptcy. Debts are something lie $65 Million as Such. Happened Earlier in the Week. There is Also another Company in the North East Part of Calgary that has Shut Down as Well, Name Escapes Me off Hand. (Waltons) Saw the Notices in the Sun/Herald on Bills Oweing, Not Paid etc
I find it Disturbing that Trudope and the Libtards can GIVE Lots of Taxpayers Dollars to Bombardier in the peoples republic of quebec but WHEN Companies in Western Canada get into TROUBLE - MONEY? .No where to B FOUND, Not a Word Either, So Much for the WEST, I am ALSO Calling into RACEY NOTLEY';S
Go Green/Carbon Taxes into Question as Well. Policies that are KILLING JOBS and INVESTMENTS in Alberta, Ya Right , Tell Me Another One.-Housing in My Book says a LOT about the HEATH about the Regional/Local Economies in a Given Areas Its NOT just Oil & Gas. I Worked in Appraisell 4 Yrs in Mtl. I LEARNED a Lot about Industrial, Commercial and Residential Real Estate. In My Book, That Says a Lot.

Tnx,
Operater,
 

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