Women of core working-age leading employment growth
In 2018, employment increased by 163,000 or 0.9%. This pace of growth was slower compared with 2017 (+2.3%) and 2016 (+1.2%).
Over the course of the year, the unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.6%—the lowest rate since comparable data became available in January 1976.
Full-time employment continued on an upward trend in 2018, growing by 185,000 or 1.2%, while part-time employment was little changed.
Among the core-working-age population (aged 25 to 54), employment in 2018 increased more notably for women (+126,000 or +2.2%) than for men (+61,000 or +1.0%). At year end, the unemployment rate among this age group was 4.6% for women and 4.8% for men.
For men and women aged 55 and over, employment rose by 50,000 (+1.2%) in 2018, with most of the increase among men (+43,000 or +2.0%), whose unemployment rate fell 0.8 percentage points to 5.3% over the period. For women in this age group, employment was little changed, as was their unemployment rate of 4.6%.
In 2018, employment among young people aged 15 to 24 was down 73,000 (-2.9%), following gains the previous year. With little change in the size of their population, young people saw their employment rate fall by 1.9 percentage points to 55.3% at the end of 2018. On the other hand, their unemployment rate increased by 0.6 percentage points to 11.1%.