BC Employment by Sector October 2012

Below are some graphs highlighting BC's employment over the past 15 years in various sectors. But first here are the historical employment, participation, and unemployment rates (CANSIM tables 282-0117 and 282-0087)

And the spreads between the rest of BC and Vancouver CMA.

Here are the contributions of the two major goods producing sectors (construction and manufacturing) as a percentage of total employment. These are seasonally unadjusted with 3 month moving average applied (CANSIM table 282-0111).

And the service producing sectors (NSA)

The red line on the service sector graph, "Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing [52-53]", has dropped down as it did in 2008. Transportation and warehousing is showing a marked rebound as % employment. Strength in manufacturing has waned of late. This is not what I would consider a bullish survey -- unemployment remains stubbornly high compared to the government's targets, though perhaps these levels are not much of a surprise if one looks at how the low levels of unemployment of the last decade were produced.