A growing job market but more part time work: A picture of employment in Toronto

The city just released the results of its employment survey for 2019, which gives a snapshot of Toronto’s job market.

On the whole, jobs are up. The survey counted just over 1.5 million jobs in the region, which is an increase of 3.1 per cent from 2018. That’s a number that exceeds the city’s five-year average employment growth rate of 2.5 per cent, as well as Toronto’s 10-year average rate of two per cent.

But it’s important to note what kinds of jobs are seeing the most gains. Full-time employment (which amounts to 75.1 per cent of that total) grew more slowly than the city average, rising 2.8 per cent from 2018.

Part time employment (which amounts 24.9 per cent of the total) rose by four per cent compared to last year.

“The 2018-2019 trend reflects a long term increase in the share of part-time employment in the city,” the city said in its report.

And though the number of jobs are rising, not every sector is seeing the same boost. After seeing growth for the last two years, employment in the manufacturing and warehousing sector declined by 920 jobs in 2019, which represents a 0.7 per cent drop.

The city noted closures like the Campbell’s Soup factory in Etobicoke, which previously contributed 500 manufacturing jobs, as part of the reason for that change.

While manufacturing took a hit, it was at least somewhat offset by gains in warehousing, which grew by 7.1 per cent in the last year.

The city found that is contributing to a demand for industrial space, which is being driven by both e-commerce and food warehousing and distribution, as evidenced by the recent expansion or planned construction of distribution centres for Amazon and Canada Post in Scarborough, and Purolator and Metro in Etobicoke.

Office work continues to be the city’s largest employment driver with 753,420 jobs, making up 48.0 per cent of the city’s total.

There were 23,470 office jobs added last year, which is half of all new jobs, and a jump of 3.2 per cent from 2018.

There was also growth in the public universities and colleges sector, which added almost 7,800 jobs. The city says almost half of that increase was due to a return to full staffing numbers of teaching assistants at York University after the 2018 strike.

The rest of the growth in that sector came from expansion and increases in enrollment at a range of institutions, which the city says reflects a Canada-wide trend toward higher enrollment over the last decade.

CBC