Canadian economy adds jobs in February, jobless rate remains unchanged at 5.8 pct

The Canadian economy added 55.9k jobs in the month of February. The jobless rate was unchanged at 5.8 percent as more people joined the labor market. The labor force participation rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 65.8 percent. The jobs mix was generally good, with full-time employment strongly in the driver’s seat. Part-time jobs dropped 11.6k. The private sector led the way, adding 31.8k net positions, while the public sector added 8.8k. Rounding things out was 15.1k net rise in self-employment.

Younger Canadians enjoyed the bulk of the gains, as 15-25 year olds recorded a net rise of 28.6k, which helped bring their jobless rate down 0.4 percentage points to 10.8 percent.

The rise was mainly driven by service sectors, with marked strength in professional services and retail/wholesale trade. For the third consecutive month, Ontario and Quebec drove the overall gains, with little marked movement in the other provinces. Quebec’s jobless rate dropped to 5.3 percent, while Ontario’s remained at 5.7 percent.

Wages accelerated to 2.2 percent for permanent employees. In spite of the generally positive details of today’s report, aggregate hours worked dropped for the third consecutive month, falling 0.7 percent sequentially. The recent strength of labor market gains sent the trend rate to 48.3k per month, the strongest it has been since 2002. The year-on-year rate of gains was a strong 2 percent in February.

“The Bank of Canada will be happy to see the generally healthy trend in labour markets continued in February, but today's report probably bears even less influence on their thinking than usual. Reinforced by both the weak end to 2018 and Bank communication this week, solid job trends over the last year have not been translating into consumer spending. Until this disconnect is eliminated, and convincingly so, expect little from Governor Poloz and company”, said TD Economics in a research report.

At 17:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Canadian Dollar was slightly bearish at -57.6348 while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 11.6801 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex