Photo by ThinkPanama
More than 58,000 jobs have been created in the Canadian economy over the last month, Statistics Canada data showed on Friday. These impressive figures come as a pleasant surprise, considering most analysts’ expectations for April, which estimated about 20,000 new jobs. Most of the newly created positions are part-time jobs. The gains helped to lower the country’s unemployment rate to 7.6 per cent in April from 7.7 per cent in March.
Getting over the hurdle
Overall, employment has increased by 283,000 positions during the past year and the results of recent months offer little to be enthusiastic about; this is why the revealed report comforted the investors so much. Even though it can be argued that the quality of the newly gained jobs is low, as the increase was lead by part-time positions, it is also clear that by now, the number of full-time jobs has matched the levels of the pre-recession economy.
On the other hand, the growth of real wages remains flat. Canadian real wages only gained 2.4 per cent from a year earlier. In addition, the unemployment rate of young workers remained rather high, at 14.3 per cent, following the general trend.
Charles St-Arnaud, Canadian economist at Nomura Securities International, does not think that April’s figures will have too much impact on the Bank of Canada’s interest rates decision later in April. “All major indicators of the job market (employment gains, unemployment rate, participation rate and employment rate) have improved on the month, suggesting the Canadian labour market remains solid,” he added.
