Canada: Resilient jobs market – ING

James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, suggests that amongst the uncertainty over trade and worries about global growth, the Canadian jobs market is proving to be more resilient than they had thought.

Key Quotes

“After a subdued three months for employment growth between May and July, it bounced back sharply in August (81,100) with another 53,700 jobs created last month. As such the six-month moving average for job creation is moving higher again with full time jobs leading the charge, rising 70,000 in September. Year-to-date employment growth is at 358,100, the best figure for the first nine months of a year since 2002.”

“This outcome was well ahead of even the most optimistic forecast (the consensus was for a 7,500 gain overall), but there are caveats. It was entirely a public sector story (30,000 for healthcare, for example) for September. Private sector employment fell 21,000 with particular weakness in the goods producing sectors. This tallies with recent softness in some of the activity data and perhaps hints at weaker overall employment growth in coming months.”

“Nonetheless, with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.5%, which means there is a very small pool from which to find new employees and this is translating into robust wage growth. Wages are currently rising 4.3% year-on-year, which could be supportive for both consumer confidence and spending, at least in the near term.”