Canada jobs, unemployment rate: What economists say

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Canadian employers barely hired enough in November to bring substantial job gains in the labour market, yet the unemployment rate dropped, Statistics Canada reported on Dec. 2.

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Canada gained 10,000 jobs and the unemployment rate slipped from 5.2 per cent in October to 5.1 per cent in November.

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The Bank of Canada keeps a close eye on wage growth to look for any signs of cooling in its efforts to ease inflation. Wages held steady in November at 5.6 per cent year-over-year after six consecutive months of increases.

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Here’s what economists make of the numbers:

Stephen Brown, senior economist at Capital Economics

“The concern for the Bank is that, despite the slowdown in employment growth, the unemployment rate nevertheless declined to 5.1 per cent, from 5.2 per cent, as the labour force contracted. The better news is that the jump in average hourly earnings in October was not repeated,” Brown said in a client note. “On balance, we still think the Bank will drop down to a 25 basis-point hike next week, but it will be a closer call than market pricing seems to imply.”

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Douglas Porter, chief economist at Bank of Montreal

“There’s nothing here to obviously sway the Bank of Canada’s rate decision next week either way, but it’s quite clear that the labour market remains tight and in solid shape overall. The Bank has expressed concern about a possible acceleration in wage growth on many occasions, and the still-firm result here may keep them uneasy. We remain comfortable with our call for a 50 bp hike next week, with the combination of the surprisingly healthy Q3 GDP report earlier this week and a steady job report supporting that option,” Porter wrote in a client note.

Royce Mendes, head of macro strategy at Desjardins

“As a result of the only modest gain in headline employment and the absence of any signs of accelerating wage growth, we continue to expect the Bank of Canada to hike rates just 25bps next week,” Mendes wrote in a client note.

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James Orlando, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank

“The labour market is still hot. Following October’s mammoth jobs gain, we were expecting some stabilization in today’s report. With another 10 thousand jobs gained, and full-time work dominating the underlying figures, the labour market continues to heat up,” Orlando said in a note.

“Today’s report reinforced expectations that the Bank of Canada will continue hiking its policy rate at its meeting next week. With the rate likely to get to 4.25 per cent, the BoC will have undoubtedly reached restrictive territory. Though we haven’t seen it in the labour market data as of yet, the impact of the BoC’s aggressive moves will eventually cool the labour market. With the recent momentum, this is expected to take pace in mid to late 2023.”

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