[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto, Vancouver are creating all Canada's job growth"

[rfmcdonald]

This CBC News report is terribly alarming. I can't help but feel that Canada is careening towards some unpleasant fate.

Blistering hot housing markets aren't the only things setting Toronto and Vancouver apart from the rest of Canada — the two cities also accounted for all of the country's job growth, economists say.

"Yes, that means the rest of the country has created precisely no new jobs in the past year," BMO chief economist Douglas Porter said in a recent commentary.

The situation is "extremely unusual" given that two cities account for 25 per cent of total employment in Canada, Porter said.

He added that this highlights the "extreme regional divergence" in the Canadian economy, and that the strong job growth in Toronto and Vancouver "at least partly explains the strength in their housing markets."

[. . .]

Overall employment in B.C. jumped 4.9 per cent in the past year, while Ontario was second in the country, but "way back" at 1.4 per cent, [Robert Kavcic, senior economist at the bank] said.