TORONTO (Reuters) -Canada’s economy lost 65,500 jobs in August and the jobless rate fell to 7.1%, a nine-year high outside the pandemic years, Statistics Canada data showed on Friday.
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COMMENTARY
ANDREW KELVIN, HEAD OF CANADIAN AND GLOBAL RATES STRATEGY, TD SECURITIES
“It’s a very poor number, there’s no sugar coating it. If you look at the underlying details it’s perhaps not as soft as the headline number would suggest, but that being said the headline number is extremely weak.”
“The job losses were concentrated in part-time positions but we still lost full-time positions. The unemployment rate is now above 7%, there is clearly slack in the economy. I do think it’s something the Bank of Canada is going to look at as supporting further policy easing … We do expect them to cut rates this month.”
DOUG PORTER, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT BMO CAPITAL MARKETS
“Obviously, (the report is) weaker than expected. I would say this is a more clear-cut case of softness than the July report, which I viewed as a correction to the surprising strength in June. This one seems to be fairly weak across the board. It might not be quite as bad as the headlines suggested, because a lot of the losses were in part-time positions and self-employment, but still, you know, the reality is the unemployment rate has pushed above 7%. This is the second double-digit drop in jobs in a row. … We always try to do a quick rating based on the many different indicators and this report is a fail.”
(Reporting by Fergal Smith and Anna Mehler Paperny; Editing by Caroline Stauffer)
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