Canadian Employment Preview: Forecasts from five major banks, little if any gain

Canada’s employment data for January will be reported by Statistics Canada on Friday, February 10 at 13:30 GMT and as we get closer to the release time, here are forecasts from economists and researchers at five major banks regarding the upcoming jobs figures. 

The North American economy is estimated to have created 15K jobs in January as against a massive jobs growth of 104K reported in December. The Unemployment Rate, however, is seen rising a tick to 5.1% last month from December’s 5%.

TDS

“We look employment to rise by 5K for a deceleration from the recent trend, with services driving job growth, as the UE rate edges higher to 5.1% and wages decelerate to 4.3% YoY.” 

RBC Economics

“The record squeeze on Canadian labour markets is unlikely to have loosened much in January. We look for a small increase in employment (roughly 5K workers) to add to the 176K surge in positions that played out over the prior four months. We also expect a tick up in the unemployment rate, to 5.1% – still just off multi-decade lows earlier in the summer.”

NBF

“We expect employment to have fallen 20K in the first month of 2023. Such a decline would translate into a two-tick increase in the unemployment rate to 5.2%, assuming the participation rate remained steady at 65.0% and the working-age population grew at a strong pace.”

Citibank

“We expect a solid 25K increase in employment in January and continue to see upside risks for employment figures in the near term. A strong 25K pace would put some downward pressure on the unemployment rate, although a more modest increase to 5.1% is more likely due to the rise in participation that could also be related to stronger immigration. We expect usual start-of-year wage increases to boost YoY wages of permanent employees to 4.8% – wage growth of 4-5% is not consistent with 2% inflation.”

CIBC

“We forecast a modest 5K gain in employment during January, which would be below the pace of labour force growth and see the unemployment rate tick up to 5.1%.”