Canada gained an impressing 60,900 jobs in September, far more than 15.2K that was expected. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 7.1% beating expectations of an unchanged figure. This doubles surprise sends USD/CAD lower
USD/CAD was trading around 1.04 before the release, and is now on the move, currently at 1.0340. The move continues.
Last month, Canada lost 5500 jobs, when a big gain of over 20K was expected. This figure more than erases that loss. It is the biggest job gain since January. The unemployment rate is the lowest since December 2008. Quite a long time!
This comes after many months of relatively sluggish employment figures from Canada. As the Canadian economy depends a lot on demand form the US, could this hint a good result in the Non-Farm Payrolls? We’ll know quite soon.
Earlier in the week, USD/CAD made a huge leap. It crossed resistance at 1.0510 and challenged high resistance at 1.0677. But then things changed and the pair eventually fell after a “head and shoulders” pattern.
Canadian figures were mixed this week: building permits fell by 10.4%. A small rise was expected. On the other hand, the highly regarded Ivey PMI leaped to 63.4 points, indicating strong growth, something that other indicators aren’t showing.
The markets are very tense now towards the release of employment figures fro Canada’s southern neighbor. The US is expected to show some job gains, but there are quite a few doubts.
See the Non-Farm Payrolls preview for the all the details.