The Canadian economy posted a monster jobs gain in September, pushing employment back to its pre-pandemic levels, and the jobless rate hit an 18-month low, Statistics Canada data indicated on Friday.
Analysts said the figures showed the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic was gaining pace but predicted the Bank of Canada would want to see sustained evidence of strength before adopting a more aggressive stance on the timing of interest rate hikes.
Statistics Canada reported a net gain of 157,100 new jobs, all of them in full-time employment. The jobless rate dipped to 6.9%, the lowest level since February 2020.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the country would add 65,000 new jobs in September and its unemployment rate would fall to 6.9% from 7.1% in August.
Canada has now returned to the employment levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic started last year, having regained the 3 million jobs it lost during the crisis, Statscan said.
“It’s very solid and shows that Canada is doing well in that fourth wave,” said Jimmy Jean, chief economist at Desjardins Group, saying the central bank might announce later in October that it is further tapering its quantitative easing program.
All the job gains came in full-time employment, which posted an increase of 193,600 new jobs, and were split evenly between the public and private sectors. The economy shed 36,500 part-time positions.
The Bank of Canada slashed interest rates to a record low of 0.25% last year and says it will not consider raising them again until the economy has absorbed excess slack, which it expects to occur in the second half of 2022.
Due to population growth, there are still 276,000 more people unemployed than there were in February 2020.
“The Bank of Canada is still going to want to see more improvement from here because their goal isn’t just to get back to the pre-pandemic jobs number, it (is) to get back to the pre-pandemic employment population ratio,” said Andrew Kelvin, chief Canada strategist at TD Securities.
The Canadian dollar touched its strongest level since Aug. 11 at 1.2490 per greenback, or 80.06 U.S. cents, up as much as 0.5% on the day. Separately, data showed U.S. employment increased far less than expected in September.
Royce Mendes, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets, noted that while the number of hours worked were up 1.1%, they remained 1.5% below their pre-pandemic level.
“While the headline print likely seals the deal for another taper from the Bank of Canada later this month, there’s still a ways to go to fully heal the labor market,” he said in a note.
(Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Fergal Smith and Maiya Keidan in Toronto;Editing by Alison Williams, Chizu Nomiyama and Paul Simao)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
