July jobless rate falls to lowest since 2008
Reuters
Statistics Canada said August 5, 2011 the economy managed to eke out 7,100 new jobs while holding on to the 28,400 jobs that were picked up in June.
The increase was less than half that expected in a Reuters survey of analysts but was marked by a healthy switch to full-time and private-sector employment.
“Looking beyond the so-so headline, almost every detail in the report is quite strong. We saw solid full-time gains, the private sector accounted for all the job gains and surprisingly the unemployment rate fell,” BMO Capital Markets deputy chief economist Douglas Porter said.
Key to the unemployment rate decline was that 28,600 people dropped out of the labour force.
The jobless rate had peaked at 8.7% in August 2009 and now stands approximately two percentage points lower than that in the United States.
Despite the strong Canadian dollar, employment in manufacturing edged up by 10,100 and stood 22,000 higher than the depressed levels of a year earlier. Construction, transportation, warehousing and retail and wholesale all posted gains in the month; health and education registered losses.
The annual increase in hourly average wages of permanent employees, closely watched by the Bank of Canada for signs of inflationary pressure, fell to 1.2% in July from 2.0% in June.
[ 2011-08-09 ]
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