Canada posted stunning employment growth in the month of March, adding 82,000 jobs, but the bigger picture isn’t nearly as positive, says an analysis from BMO.
Using measures from StatsCan, BMO deputy chief economist Doug Porter put together a chart showing a definite downward trend in job creation since the second half of 2011.
The chart shows the year-over-year change in employment for each month since 2007. The big dip in the centre is the massive job losses that hit Canada in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008. The right-hand part of the chart, showing a dip in employment change in recent months with the rate approaching zero, suggests very little net job gains in Canada over the past year.
“While the latest Labour Force Survey showed a nice pop in March jobs, the belated establishment survey reported another job loss in February [down 19,000 jobs],” Porter writes. “That’s the third decline in a row for this series, and the fourth in five months.
“The overall impression from both reports is that job growth has cooled broadly in the past six months, even with the March bounce,” he adds.
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