Canada failed to generate any new jobs in April, but the unemployment rate stayed at the lowest in four decades and wages accelerated to signal a tight labour market.<\/p>\n
Canada lost 1,100 jobs during the month, Statistics Canada reported Friday, just the second time since mid-2016 the economy didn\u2019t add new positions. Economists had forecast a 20,000 job gain.<\/p>\n
The numbers fit a pattern over the past four months that indicate a labour market hitting capacity \u2014 with the labour force stalling and employees seeing larger wage gains.<\/p>\n
The trend poses a major challenge to the Bank of Canada, since how quickly the economy expands without triggering wage gains and inflation is a key question for policy makers. Even with last year\u2019s surge in hiring and wages gaining, the central bank has said pockets of untapped labour market slack remain that could limit wage and price pressures.<\/p>\n
Since the start of the year, Canada\u2019s labour force has shrunk by 25,500 and employment is down by 41,400.<\/p>\n
The average hourly wage in April was $27.02 in Canada, up 3.6 per cent from a year earlier. That\u2019s the fastest pace of growth since 2012. Average hourly wages for permanent workers \u2014 which is more closely watched by economists as a gauge of underlying pressures \u2014 was up 3.3 per cent, also matching the highest since 2012.<\/p>\n
\u2022 One positive is the losses were in part time, which registered a 30,000 drop in employment.
\nFull-time employment was up 28,800, which is near average over the past 12 months<\/p>\n
\u2022 Gains were also recorded in the \u201cemployed\u201d segment of the labour force, which offset drops in self-employment For just the second time in two years, Canada lost jobs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9061,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060\/revisions\/9061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 Hours worked up 1.9 per cent in April from a year ago, the smallest increase since November 2017
\nEmployment declines were led by the construction industry, which saw an 18,900 job loss. Services-related jobs were up 14,800 during the month
\nBloomberg.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"