Non-farm payroll employment declined by 33,800 in November, countering a similar increase the previous month, Statistics Canada said Thursday.

Small losses across a large number of industries led to the decline after two consecutive months of increases, the agency said.

Tracking payrolls

In broad terms, Statistics Canada's survey of employment, payrolls and hours tracks the number of jobs across the country by calculating tax remittances by businesses registered with the Canada Revenue Agency.

At regular intervals, registered firms must submit how much tax money they have withheld on behalf of how many employees. The changes in those figures represent the net change in jobs, agency spokesman Danielle Zietsma said.

In effect, it is a compilation of payroll positions. If one person has three jobs, the survey would count each of their paid positions as one job. The survey excludes workers who are self-employed or those who are taking unpaid leave at any given time.

It also excludes jobs in several sectors including agriculture, fishing and trapping, and religious organizations, as the agency deems them to be too volatile to track. It provides complementary information to the labour force survey, which is a voluntary survey of 110,000 households.

The largest losses in November came in grocery stores, public administration, universities and telecommunications companies, all of which posted net losses of between 2,800 and 4,100 jobs during the month.

The largest gains came in community-care facilities for the elderly, which added a net 3,100 jobs during the month.

Compared with the first six months of 2009 when employment declined sharply, the Canadian jobs picture has been relatively flat since June 2009.

This change in trend reflects a slower pace of loss in some industries, combined with little change or growth in other industries.

Wages increasing

Since June, the pace of job losses in manufacturing has slowed considerably to 6,100 per month on average. That compares with the average of 21,600 manufacturing jobs lost per month between October 2008 and June 2009.

Within the manufacturing sector, the construction industry has added 13,700 jobs since June.

Average weekly earnings, including overtime, of payroll employees was $830.46 in November, up 1.3 per cent from November 2008.

Average weekly earnings increase in November for all provinces compared with November 2008.