Canada’s labour market surprises with biggest one-month jobs gain since 1976

OTTAWA — Canada’s economy is reporting its biggest one-month employment surge since 1976, when the government started collecting comparable data.

Statistics Canada says the labour market added 106,500 jobs in April, the bulk of which were full time. It adds there were notable gains in part-time work for youth.

The increase helped drop the unemployment rate to 5.7 per cent last month, down from 5.8 per cent in March.

The labour market has seen strong employment numbers since mid-2016 and has remained a bright spot for an economy that has struggled in other areas — to the point it almost stalled over the winter.

Employment grew 0.6 per cent with the April increase, which was the highest proportional monthly expansion since 1994.

A closer look at the April numbers reveals the overall gain was driven by the creation of 73,000 full-time jobs and 83,800 positions in the private sector.

Economists had expected a gain of 10,000 jobs for the month and the unemployment rate to remain at 5.8 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon.

Compared with a year earlier, Canada added 426,400 for a proportional increase of 2.3 per cent.

Year-over-year average hourly wage growth for all employees in April was 2.5 per cent, up from a reading of 2.4 per cent for March.

The gains were spread across many industries, with both the services and factory sectors seeing employment increases.

The Canadian Press


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