Canadian Employment Report: Not be overly worried – NFB

The Canadian employment report for October was released today and showed numbers below expectations. Matthieu Arseneau, analysts at the National Bank of Canada point outs the labour market took a breather but also noted it showed the strongest real wage increases since 2012.

Key Quotes:

“Canada’s employment was essentially flat in October (-1.8K) according to the Labour Force Survey, below consensus expectations calling for a 15K rise. That said, the jobless rate remained unchanged at 5.5% with the participation rate remaining also unchanged at 65.7%.”

“LFS employment report was below expectations for the first time in three months. A boon was expected by economists as the election occurred during the reference week but it turns out that the contribution from the government in October has been relatively low compared to past similar episodes. One should not be overly worried by the pullback observed in self-employed and the private sector last month (-32K combined). Those two categories taken together jumped by a massive 225K so far this year, the second best performance in the current expansion.”

“Total employment, meanwhile, is up a whopping 356K this year in Canada, still the highest since 2002, with no less than 79% of those jobs being full-time. Such a development definitely helped the housing sector to get back on its feet. Meanwhile, consumption should continue to have some support in the coming months as real wages have been running recently at their fastest clip since 2012.”