Despite the rise in employment, however, the addition of 23,800 people to the labour force during the month was enough to nudge up the unemployment rate to 6.1% from 6% a month earlier.

Analysts were expecting to see 10,000 new jobs in April, and the jobless rate holding steady at its March level.

The booming construction sector added 16,200 more jobs in April, bringing its year-over-year gain to 113,000 or 10.1%. Accommodation and food services also continued to grow, adding 22,200 positions. The sector now employs almost 1.1 million people.

Manufacturing weakness continued in April, with the sector shedding 14,900 jobs compared with the month before. In the past year 112,000 manufacturing jobs have been wiped out, with nearly half the losses (50,000) in Ontario. Other provinces with heavy manufacturing employment losses were British Columbia (-29,000), Quebec (-13,000) and Alberta (-11,000).

Manitoba was the star performer among the provinces in April, adding 9,000 jobs. That was enough to knock its unemployment rate down to 3.8%, the second lowest level in the country after Alberta at 3.3%.

Quebec was the only province to record a significant job loss in April, with employment sliding by 19,800 and the unemployment rate edging up to 7.6%.

Newfoundland and Labrador gained 2,400 jobs in the month, but Canada's easternmost province still has an unemployment rate of 13.2%, the highest in the country.

Employment in Ontario rose by 12,200 in April to just above 6.7 million. That pushed the jobless rate down a tick to 6.3%.

British Columbia added 6,400 jobs, Alberta was up 3,600 and Saskatchewan increased 1,900.

Year-over-year growth in average hourly wages was 4.3% in April, down from the 4.9% pace recorded in January and February.

By Geoff Matthews, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it