‘After a rocking first quarter, it’s tough to deny that the Canadian economy is looking much healthier.’ — Benjamin Reitzes, BMO Capital Markets
Canadian job growth rose at its fastest pace in eight months in May with the largest gains registered in the manufacturing and professional services sectors, official figures showed on Friday. Statistics Canada reported that employers created 54.5K jobs last month, following April’s gain of just 3.2K jobs, whereas analysts anticipated a gain of 11.5K positions in May. Meanwhile, the jobless rate rose to 6.6% during the reported month from April’s 6.5%, meeting economists’ expectations. The labour force participation rate climbed to 65.8% in May, following the prior month’s 65.6%. Average hourly earnings were up 1% year-over-year in the fifth month of the year, compared to the previous month’s increase of 0.5%. The wage increase is set to please the Bank of Canada that pointed to subdued wage growth at its latest meeting. The manufacturing sector added 25.3K jobs to the economy in May, the professional and scientific services sector – 25.9K. Overall, the services sector added 31.3K jobs to the economy in May, whereas the goods-producing sectors hired 23.3K people last moth.
