Statistics Canada released its September labour force survey Friday morning, which shows employment rose by 64,000 jobs."While the headline figures will be grabbing most of the attention, we'd caution on getting too excited. Almost all the gains were in the historically volatile education sector," said TD director of economics James Orlando in a client note.
Strong population growth has also been supporting larger monthly job gains, as more people enter the labour force. The Bank of Canada’s rate hikes since March 2022 are beginning to be felt in the Canadian economy as growth slows and job vacancies fall. The central bank’s key interest rate currently sits at five per cent – the highest it’s been since 2001.
Despite these conditions, however, wage growth has outpaced inflation this year, making up for previous losses to price growth.