Canadian Jobs Preview: Forecasts from five major banks, more lackluster performance

Canada’s employment data for November will be reported by Statistics Canada on Friday, December 2 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 5K jobs in November as against a massive jobs growth of 108.3K reported in October. The Unemployment Rate, however, is seen higher at 5.3% last month from October’s 5.2%.

TDS

“The labour market should see more modest gains with 12K jobs added in November to leave the UE rate steady at 5.2% while wage growth should soften a touch to 5.3% YoY.”

RBC Economics

“Though labour markets surged back in October, average employment growth still slowed to under 10K per month over the last half a year (following softer numbers in the summer and early fall). We are looking for a smaller 5Kposition increase in employment in November and a tick up in the unemployment rate (though to a still very low 5.3% rate from 5.2% in October).”

NBF

“The prior month’s report was suspiciously strong (+108.3K) given slowing growth and declining business confidence. A trend reversal would therefore not be surprising; we expect employment to have fallen 25K in the penultimate month of 2022. Such a decline would translate into a two-tick increase in the unemployment rate to 5.4%, assuming the participation rate remained steady at 64.9% and the working-age population grew at a strong pace.”

CIBC

“Employment surged in October, although with the size of the labour force doing the same the unemployment rate held steady. We forecast a modest gain in employment of 10K in November, which would be modestly below the pace of labour force growth and as such could see the jobless rate tick up to 5.3%.”

Citibank

“We expect a 15K decline in Canadian jobs in November. A return of strong immigration to Canada though could cause the unemployment rate to rise in November to 5.4%, as the labor force participation rate rises. But it would take a more substantial drop in November employment (more than 50K) to significantly raise the probability of a smaller 25 bps hike in December.”