Canada’s economy added 106,500 jobs in April, Statistics Canada said Friday, the biggest one-month increase in data going back to 1976. The jobless rate dropped to 5.7 per cent, compared to 5.8 per cent in March.
Here are some of the notable reactions to April’s surprising jobs data:
“So much for the soft economy. Suddenly a lot of Canadian young people decided that they needed to work, and they helped power a massive surge in employment in April if today's data are to be taken at face value.”
- Avery Shenfeld, managing director and chief economist, CIBC Capital Markets
“This is a notoriously volatile series … There’s no question the jobs market is on fire, and has been for quite a long time. And [it’s] actually perplexing given what Canada has gone through in the last year, particularly with respect to the trade war.”
- Sherry Cooper, chief economist, Dominion Lending Centres
“April’s 107,000 rise in employment blew the consensus out of the water, but with over half of the gain coming from part-time work among young people the increase was less impressive than [it] first seemed. While the gain will still encourage policymakers, as wage growth remains fairly low, there is little prospect of the Bank of Canada putting interest rate hikes back on the table.”
- Stephen Brown, senior Canada economist, Capital Economics
“Wow. This was by and large a solid report. Nearly every indicator of quality came in strong this month: the best-ever gain came with solid full-time job growth, all in employees (rather than self-employed), more Canadians were drawn into labour markets, and wages were up. Chalk this one up as a solid message that employers still have faith in the Canadian economy.”
- Brian DePratto, senior economist, TD Economics
“There’s no way for even the staunchest bears to spin it — this is as good of a jobs report as you can get … And, even though real GDP growth was weak again in Q1, recent job trends suggest that the broader economy is not falling off a cliff, and that the weakness should prove transitory, as we and the Bank of Canada expect.”
-Robert Kavcic, senior economist, BMO Capital Markets
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