It has been a while since I have sent out a “good news” article, but here are three in one day. That is great!
1. The country's real estate market is so hot cities are running out of properties to sell
2. Canada's unemployment rate falls to 8.4%, first decline since recession
3. Surprise! U.S. sales rise in September
Average Canadian home prices up slightly, says Royal LePage survey
The Canadian Press
TORONTO - The housing market may be recovering, but is experiencing an undersupply of homes for sale in southern Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
That's according to the latest house price survey by Royal LePage. It says with the recession retreating, home prices are stabilizing and unit sales are increasingly driven by improved affordability.
Royal LePage says the average price of a two storey home in Canada is up just 0.1 per cent from a year ago at $409,335.
Average bungalow values grew 0.06 per cent year-over-year to $341,146, while the price of an average condo increased 0.09 per cent to $243,748.
Royal LePage says a shortage in housing supply is leading to bidding wars in several cities, including Toronto, Montreal, St. John's, N.L.; St. John, N.B. Moncton, Edmonton, Calgary, North and West Vancouver, and Victoria.
While the Atlantic provinces saw a strong recovery in home prices, western provinces have been slower to recover from significant price corrections in 2008, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta.
Ontario and Quebec saw home prices stabilize or gain slightly year-over-year with much of the recovery occurring in a strong third quarter.
Canada's unemployment rate falls to 8.4%, first decline since recession
By Julian Beltrame, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Canada's unemployment rate fell for the first time in nearly a year to 8.4 per cent last month, in perhaps the clearest indication the hard-hit labour market may be recovering sooner than expected.
The September jobs pick-up of 30,600 was five times larger than the economist consensus forecast of 5,000 and - along with a slight decrease in the number of workers looking for jobs - helped drop the national unemployment rate by 0.3 percentage points.
This was the second consecutive month of employment gains.
There was more good news - actual hours worked increased by 1.6 per cent.
More impressive, the agency said 91,600 full-time jobs were added in September, more than offsetting the 61,000 loss in part-time employment.
This reverses the pattern observed most of the past year as employers cut back by first reducing full-time workers to part-time status.
Economists consider employment a lagging indicator because employers usually will wait until they see clear signs that a recovery is underway and will be sustained before beginning to re-hire.
By contrast, the U.S. is still reporting massive monthly job losses even though most believe the economy there has turned the corner and begun to grow.
Canada has seen a fitful rebound from the downturn, although the most recent data on gross domestic product only extends to July and does not capture the next two months of job gains.
If there was a downside to the Canadian jobs data for September, it was that hourly wage growth slowed to 2.5 per cent, the lowest year-over-year wage gain in 2 1/2 years, and that all and more of the net job growth was in the public sector.
Also, adult men continue to have difficulty finding work. September saw a decline on employment among men aged 25 to 55, while women in the same age group saw employment rise by 41,000.
Since October, most of the employment losses have occurred among adult men and youth.
But Statistics Canada noted that the trend of Canada's labour market has been improving steadily forward since the outsized job losses of last winter.
"Since the peak in October 2008, employment has fallen 2.1 per cent (357,000), with the bulk of the decline occurring between October and march 2009," the agency noted.
"Since then, the trend in employment has levelled, with the number of employed almost the same in September as it was in March."
The biggest jobs gains came in industries that have been hardest hit by the recession. Manufacturers added 26,000 workers last month, and the construction trade, which may have been boosted by federal stimulus money, picked up 25,000 workers, the second consecutive gain.
Workers in education services also saw improvement with 18,000 jobs added to the sector last month, when students returned to schools, colleges and universities following the summer break.
Meanwhile, employment in transportation and warehousing slipped by 21,000.
Regionally, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island saw significant job gains in September. Nova Scotia, Quebec and Manitoba saw outright job losses.
Surprise! U.S. sales rise in September
Up by 0.6%
Jessica Wohl, Reuters
U.S. retailers gave investors an early Christmas present, posting their first monthly sales increase in more than a year and suggesting that wounded consumers might begin to heal in time for the crucial holiday season.
Store chains that included Macy's Inc., Abercrombie & Fitch and Kohl's Corp. surprised Wall Street yesterday with better-than-expected September sales.
The Standard&Poor's retail index rose 1.6%, with shares of Macy's up 2.9% and Abercrombie rising 6%.
Based on 30 retailers, sales at stores open at least a year climbed 0.6%, compared with expectations for a 1.1% decline, according to Thomson Reuters data. Nearly 80% of the companies beat expectations.
The last time sales rose was in August 2008, when retailers notched a 0.2% gain. That was just before a financial collapse in September constricted credit worldwide and sent jobless rates climbing.
Retail experts cautioned that the sales results did not yet presage a consumer-driven recovery to the U.S. economy.
"You need to see sales coming through, margins holding and overall profit rising," said Michael Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers. "That overall story needs to play out for retail recovery to be solid."
The ICSC said October same-store sales should be about flat with a year earlier, when retailers averaged a 4.1% drop, said Thomson Reuters data.
One factor in the higher September sales was an easier comparison with previous results. Same-store sales fell 0.9% in September 2008, Thomson Reuters data said.
"We only get better or stronger from here, given the weak comparisons with a year ago," Mr. Niemira said.
This year's later Labour Day holiday pushed a good chunk of sales from August into September, but analysts had wondered if rising unemployment would weigh more heavily on spending.
Yesterday, a U.S. Labor Department report showed new U.S. jobless claims hit a nine-month low, suggesting the employment market was healing despite a September setback.
Sales of clothing for the back-to-school season fuelled many retailers' performances, especially in the early part of the month. Several chains raised their profit forecasts for the current quarter, although Target Corp. said it still had a cautious view of its fiscal fourth quarter, which includes the holiday season.
