Canada’s labour market recaptured some momentum in January as hiring greatly surpassed expectations, flashing a positive signal for an economy that’s been struggling of late.
The country added 34,500 positions in the month, Statistics Canada said Friday in its Labour Force Survey (LFS), nearly double the consensus estimate of 17,500 new jobs. The unemployment rate ticked down to 5.5 per cent, just shy of tying a record low.
With January’s gain, the labour market has recouped its losses from a sluggish second half of 2019, when hiring slowed considerably from a scorching pace to start the year. More than 60,000 jobs have been created over the past two months, suggesting recent economic weakness hasn’t spooked employers from adding to their headcounts.
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Moreover, average hourly wages for permanent employees rose by a lofty 4.4 per cent from a year ago.
The domestic economy continues to grapple with several worrying trends, however, such as stagnant exports and subpar business investment, along with the unknown fallout from the novel coronavirus outbreak, which has forced some Canadian companies to curtail operations.
As such, the recent jobs rebound “doesn’t yet erase the potential for a rate cut,” Royce Mendes, senior economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said in a client note. “With the economy looking likely to have barely advanced in the final quarter of 2019 and facing a number of headwinds early in 2020, there’s still the possibility that the Bank of Canada will be forced into action to support the economy.”
January’s LFS showed strength on multiple fronts. All the new jobs were in full-time positions, and nearly 50,000 positions were created in goods-producing industries, with particular strength in manufacturing (20,500) and construction (15,800).
“However, we would note that despite the best monthly gain in more than two years, factory employment is still down from a year ago,” Douglas Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal, said in a research note.
Quebec ranked as the top province, with about 19,000 jobs added. Meanwhile, Ontario continued its run of strength by creating 15,900 jobs in January and bringing its 12-month tally to nearly 210,000 new positions. Over the past year, Ontario accounts for 78 per cent of nationwide hiring.
The situation is bleaker in Alberta, which lost nearly 19,000 jobs in January, with much of the decline in part-time positions. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador all saw their unemployment rates climb higher.
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“Each of those provinces continues to face challenges in their labour markets, and the recent fall in commodity prices makes bringing them back to full health even more difficult,” Mr. Mendes said.
Another challenge in January was severe weather conditions, which led to 390,000 people across the country working fewer hours. Most of those affected were in British Columbia, while Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador also experienced sizable disruptions.
Mr. Mendes said it’s necessary to take Friday’s report “with a grain of salt,” given the survey’s inherent volatility. The LFS is a survey of households, and month-to-month changes are subject to a considerable margin of error. Other, less timely measures often paint a different picture of labour market trends.
“Still, [January’s] gains do build on the prior month’s advance, suggesting that maybe the labour market rebounded from prior weakness around the turn of the year,” Mr. Mendes said.
“That said, other indicators of the economy, in particular consumption, have looked soft. So the picture remains decidedly mixed.”
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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
