Canadian employers are continuing to hire, but are still outpaced by population growth in the country, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The agency said 41,000 net new jobs were added in February, driven by gains in full-time positions. The unemployment rate nonetheless ticked up 0.1 percentage points to 5.8 per cent as the labour pool continues to grow rapidly, StatCan said.
That offsets a drop of the same magnitude in the unemployment rate for January. The jobless rate has held at 5.8 per cent in the three of the past four months.
StatCan said employment gains were spread across industries in the services sector in February, driven by the food and accommodations industry, which added 26,000 jobs. The professional, scientific and technical services industry also saw gains, offset by losses in education and manufacturing.
Average hourly wages were up 5.0 per cent annually in February, down from the 5.3 per cent gains seen in January.
Job gains have beaten economists’ expectations for the past two months.
The Bank of Canada has been watching for softening in the labour market and a cooling in wage growth as it gauges how long its benchmark interest rate needs to stay elevated. The central bank held its policy rate steady again on Wednesday and said it’s “too early” to cut rates.
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Andrew Grantham, senior economist at CIBC, said in a note to clients Friday morning that the February jobs numbers will do little to “speed the process up.”
“Overall, there is still evidence from today’s data that labour market conditions are loosening, but only very gradually and not in a way that demands an imminent reduction in interest rates,” he said.
Most economists are calling for rate cuts to begin in June at the earliest.
More to come.
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