Canadian employment remains almost unchanged in June, jobless rate rises slightly to 5.5 pct

Canadian employment remained widely the same in June. On net, employment dropped by 2.2k. With a stable participation rate and few new jobs created, labor force growth helped to push the jobless rate up one-tenth of a point to 5.5 percent.

According to the details of the report, the Canadian economy created 24.1k full-time jobs in the month. Nevertheless, part-time jobs were lost by 26.2k, leading to the small fall of 2.2k jobs in June. Both private sector and the public sector added jobs in June, but were more than countered by a fall in self-employed.

Service industries added all the jobs, with health care and social assistance, educational services, and transportation and warehousing recording strongest gains. On the contrary, the goods sector lost 32.8k jobs, with about half of that loss occurring in the manufacturing sector.

Province-wise, employment gains were seen in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick and PEI. Small employment declines were seen in the remaining provinces. For permanent employees, wage growth rose sharply to 3.6 percent year-on-year from 2.6 percent seen in the prior two months.

“With inflation at target, low unemployment, and wage gains more in line with expectations of policymakers at this point in the cycle, there is little motivation for the Bank of Canada to change course”, stated TD Economics in a research report.

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