Yahoo Finance Canada adds record-setting 106,500 jobs in April
Canada’s job market bounced back in April in a big way by adding 106,500 jobs, which is the most ever created in a single month since Statistics Canada began tracking the data in 1976.
Most of them were full-time (73,000), while 33,600 were part-time.
Economists were caught off guard. As a group they were expecting 11,600 new jobs in April.
“So much for the soft economy,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC, in a research note.
“Suddenly a lot of Canadian young pepole decided that they needed to work, and they helped power a massive surge in employment in April if today's data are to be taken at face value.”
The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 per cent.
Ontario did a lot of the heavy lifting, by adding 47,000 jobs, Alberta added 21,000.
The rebound follows an ugly March loss of 7,200 jobs, which ended the strongest six-month run since 2002.
All of a sudden, a rate cut seems less likely.
“Yields spiked up on the diminished odds that the economy will need a rate cut any time soon, sending the Canadian dollar stronger,” said Shenfeld.
The loonie was up nearly half a cent in the moments after the jobs data came out.
Brendon Bernard, an economist at Indeed, says employment growth is defying other lukewarm data
“The working-age employment rate smashed through its previous record to hit an all-time high of 74.5%,” told Yahoo Finance Canada.
“This was partly boosted by a large jump in the youth employment rate, which surged back to levels not seen since 2008.”
Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO, is encouraged that the massive labour force inflows are getting absorbed into the job market.
“There’s no way for even the staunchest bears to spin it—this is as good of a jobs report as you can get,” said Kavcic in a research note.
“But, here is where we’d insert the usual disclaimer to not get too hopped up on any particular LFS report.”
Jessy Bains is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jessysbains
Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
