Canada’s unemployment rate dropped to a record low last month as more people jumped into a hot labour market – and economists say the jobless rate could yet fall even lower.
The March unemployment rate registered at 5.3 per cent, down from the 5.5 per cent recorded one month earlier as the economy added 72,500 jobs.
Statistics Canada said Friday it was the lowest jobless rate since comparable data became available in 1976 and down from the previous low of 5.4 per cent in May 2019. It was also a turnaround from the early days of the pandemic in May 2020 when the unemployment rate hit a record 13.4 per cent.
CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said oil-producing provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan were not at full employment before the pandemic struck and may have space for more job gains that could yet drive down the jobless rate.
“There is scope maybe for the unemployment rate to grind a little bit lower,” he said.
“That means that there’s a little bit of scope for employment growth to continue to outpace population growth, but just not to the same extent that it has recently.”
Driving the unemployment rate down last month were gains in a variety of sectors. Key to the gains were 24,500 women over age 55 finding work and 35,300 core-aged men between 25 and 54 taking jobs, primarily part-time.
The tightening of the labour market meant average hourly wages were up to 3.4 per cent year-over-year in March compared with a year-over-year gain of 3.1 per cent in February. The rate lagged the annual pace of inflation in February, which RSM Canada economist Tu Nguyen said is on track to reach its highest point since the early 1980s.
“We are in an overheated economy that is nearing full employment,” she said, suggesting wages may yet rise higher.
Despite the gains for older workers, the employment rate for those over 55 was 1.2 percentage points lower in March than in February 2020.
Katherine Scott, senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the figure could be a combination of multiple factors. She pointed to population aging and older women taking retirement, dropping out to care for family members, or that many worked in low-wage jobs that have yet to fully recover.
“It’s a real challenge because this is a group that’s economically vulnerable, may or may not have had a long history of employment may or may not have private pension income,” Scott said.
“So dropping out of the labour market in your mid- to late-50s, can set you up for very economically challenging senior years.”
With over 900,000 job vacancies as of January, which are the most recent figures available from Statistics Canada, the jobs report notes that another potential pool of workers are those aged 55 and older. Overall, job gains for that group amounted to 39,300 in March.
Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate last month would have been 7.2 per cent had it included people who wanted a job but did not look for one, falling to pre-pandemic levels for the first time.
Since hitting a peak of 1.5 million in April 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people wanting work but not actively looking has fallen to 377,000, similar in size and proportion to the overall labour force witnessed in the month of March in each of the three years before 2020.
Statistics Canada said the reasons they weren’t looking for work varied.
Just over one-quarter didn’t look because of an illness or disability. A further one-fifth were part of a group waiting for a recall or reply from an employer, or who didn’t think there was anything available. Nearly an additional fifth pointed to personal and family responsibilities as the reason they paused their job search.
Here’s a quick look at Canada’s March employment (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
Unemployment rate: 5.3 per cent (5.5)
Employment rate: 61.9 per cent (61.8)
Participation rate: 65.4 per cent (65.4)
Number unemployed: 1,100,200 (1,135,500)
Number working: 19,585,200 (19,512,700)
Youth (15-24 years) unemployment rate: 9.8 per cent (10.9)
Men (25 plus) unemployment rate: 4.4 per cent (4.7)
Women (25 plus) unemployment rate: 4.8 per cent (4.5)
Here are the jobless rates last month by province (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
Newfoundland and Labrador 12.9 per cent (12.3)
Prince Edward Island 8.1 per cent (9.0)
Nova Scotia 6.5 per cent (6.6)
New Brunswick 7.7 per cent (7.9)
Quebec 4.1 per cent (4.5)
Ontario 5.3 per cent (5.5)
Manitoba 5.3 per cent (4.8)
Saskatchewan 5.0 per cent (4.7)
Alberta 6.5 per cent (6.8)
British Columbia 5.1 per cent (4.9)
Statistics Canada also released seasonally adjusted, three-month moving average unemployment rates for major cities. It cautions, however, that the figures may fluctuate widely because they are based on small statistical samples. Here are the jobless rates last month by city (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
St. John’s, N.L. 7.4 per cent (7.3)
Halifax 5.4 per cent (5.7)
Moncton, N.B. 5.7 per cent (6.1)
Saint John, N.B. 7.4 per cent (7.3)
Saguenay, Que. 4.5 per cent (4.4)
Quebec City 2.7 per cent (2.8)
Sherbrooke, Que. 2.6 per cent (2.8)
Trois-Rivieres, Que. 3.9 per cent (5.0)
Montreal 5.1 per cent (5.2)
Gatineau, Que. 3.8 per cent (4.6)
Ottawa 5.3 per cent (5.0)
Kingston, Ont. 5.9 per cent (5.7)
Peterborough, Ont. 3.8 per cent (5.9)
Oshawa, Ont. 5.4 per cent (6.4)
Toronto 7.2 per cent (7.4)
Hamilton, Ont. 5.3 per cent (5.2)
St. Catharines-Niagara, Ont. 6.2 per cent (6.3)
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. 5.4 per cent (5.2)
Brantford, Ont. 5.1 per cent (5.5)
Guelph, Ont. 4.8 per cent (4.3)
London, Ont. 5.3 per cent (5.8)
Windsor, Ont. 8.3 per cent (8.3)
Barrie, Ont. 7.6 per cent (7.7)
Greater Sudbury, Ont. 4.0 per cent (4.3)
Thunder Bay, Ont. 4.9 per cent (5.9)
Winnipeg 5.1 per cent (4.9)
Regina 5.2 per cent (5.4)
Saskatoon 4.6 per cent (4.8)
Calgary 7.7 per cent (8.0)
Edmonton 7.1 per cent (6.9)
Kelowna, B.C. 6.7 per cent (7.1)
Abbotsford-Mission, B.C. 3.9 per cent (4.2)
Vancouver 5.4 per cent (5.4)
Victoria 4.1 per cent (4.2)
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2022.
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.
