Canadians could be forgiven for turning a little green with envy over the surge in employment occurring south of the border.
After leading the Western world in job creation in the years following the recession — as the Harper Conservative government is fond of reminding the public — the past year and a bit has not been so good.
The pattern has become familiar. On the first Friday of each month, Statistics Canada issues a report showing the economy gained or lost several thousand jobs, making up for the several thousand that were lost or gained the previous month. with one step forward and one step back, Canada's labour market has largely stalled over most of the year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department tables another strong employment report.
That's what happened Friday, when Statistics Canada announced the country added 25,800 new jobs in May, which, besides being all part-time, still didn't in numerical terms make up for the 29,000 lost the previous month.
In the United States, the jobs numbers went from strength to strength, adding 217,000 in May on top of 282,000 created in April.
It wasn't an aberration. Even allowing for a workforce that is about 10 times the size of Canada's, the United States has been leaving its northern neighbour in the dust in terms of job creation for quite some time.
Over the past 12 months, Canada's economy has added 86,000 new jobs, for a 0.5% increase. The U.S. has added 2.4 million, for a 1.7% increase.
"We're pulling away from the rest of the world," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo in the U.S.
That's something Canadians often heard from late Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. His successor, Joe Oliver, still says it but increasingly its numbers from the more distant past that he trumpets.
Bank of Montreal senior economist Sal Guatieri says there's no denying that the U.S. is catching up on the jobs front and it is likely to keep posting stronger numbers for the rest of the year, or even beyond that.
But that's where the comparison ends. Even though it may not look like it in the monthly jobs reports, Americans still should be envious of Canada's labour market, he says, and some still are.
The New York Times is not buying the world jobs leader boast. A column on Friday was titled, "Good News on Jobs. Why Aren't We Happier?"
The upshot is that it took six and a half years from the start of the recession for the U.S. to win back the 8.7 million jobs it lost during it.
By comparison, Canada recovered all the 430,000 or so jobs lost during the 2008-09 slump in early 2011, and since has added 600,000 or so more.
Because of population growth, each country has more people to employ than in 2008.
