A report released by the Canadian Government says our neighbor to the north added 79,100 jobs in November, led by education, healthcare and technical jobs. With a jobless rate of 8.5 percent, some analysts tell Fox News those jobless numbers are overstated. Still it appears Canada's economy is fairing better than the U.S., and Canada's growth areas are a good sign for the US. Fox News travel to Canada's Technology Triangle to find out whose hiring and where the jobs are.
Facts on Canadian Economy:
• Canada's Gross Domestic Product is approximately $1.3 trillion.
• Canada enjoys a substantial trade surplus with the United States, which absorbs nearly 80 percent of Canadian exports each year.
• Canada is America's largest foreign supplier of energy, including oil, gas, uranium, and electric power.
• Canada's unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, compares to the U.S. rate of 10 percent.
• Canada's unemployment rate in the recent recession peaked at 8.7 percent in August 2009
• The unemployment rate for students reached 16.4 percent in August 2009 — the highest August unemployment rate for these students since comparable data became available in 1977.
• Canadian employment rose by 79,000 in November
• Despite November's gain, Canada's employment was -321,000 (or -1.9 percent) below its peak of October 2008
Canada's Population, Work Population
• Canada's population is approx. 33.7 million.
• 16.874 million employed in Canada in November 2009
• There are almost as many employed persons in California (14.199 million in October 2009) as in all of Canada.
• Real GDP increased 0.1% in the 3rd Qtr (compared with a 2.8 percent increase for the U.S. economy)
• November 2009: Ontario's employment rose by 27,000 in November, the largest gain in the province since September 2008
• November 2009: Ontario's unemployment rate is 9.3 percent
• Ontario's employment remains well below its October 2008 level (-179,000 or -2.7 percent)
• November 2009: In the Waterloo region, the jobless rate edged up to 9.1 percent
• There are rougly 25,100 unemployed people in the Waterloo region
Canada and U.S. Trade Relationship
• 2008: Canada was the U.S.'s largest trading partner
• Total trade between the two countries was valued at approx. $597 billion.
• U.S. and Canada's staggering volume of bilateral trade is the equivalent of $1.6 billion a day in goods
• About 300,000 people cross the shared border every day
• Canada is the leading export market for 36 of the 50 U.S. States, and ranked in the top three for another 10 States
• Canada is a larger market for U.S. goods than all 27 countries of the European Community combined [whose population is more than 15 times that of Canada]
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