9 February 2018

The main decreases were reported in Ontario and Quebec. New Brunswick and Manitoba also showed declines.

In case of Ontario, where a minimum wage was raised last month, the employment fell because of losses in part-time work. The provincial unemployment rate almost hasn’t changed (5.5%) as fewer people were at the job market.

“The job losses in Ontario and the focus on part-time jobs in that province will definitely lead to discussions on whether a minimum wage increase affected the employment. However, the real causality may remain under question,” – Derek Holt from Scotiabank noted.

Doug Porter, chief economist of BMO Financial Group, believes last month’s numbers help the job market get back to reality. In his opinion, it increases the chances for the central bank to be super cautious until the end of the year.

“Even before the recent financial market volatility and this jobs data, we expected the Bank of Canada to wait until the second half of 2018 before raising the key lending rate again, and now we have more reasons to think so,” – Porter said.

“We can cross out the possibility of a rate hike in March, and April is also quite unlikely,” – he added.