The province’s unemployment rate edged up above the national average to 7.2 per cent, even as Albertans dropped out of the labour force.
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The Household A-1 employment status, which can be seen by CLICKIN HERE shows that the number of people not in the labor force jumped nearly 500,000 adults going from 93,492,000 in March to 94,044,000 in April and up 810,000 from April of 2015 when the number was at 93,324,000.
The mining and logging industry shed 8,000 positions last month, although that was an improvement from the 12,000 net jobs lost in March.
The gains in broader economy were led by professional and business services (+65,000 jobs) and health care (+44,000).
Still, with the jobless rate low, a modest softening in employment gains might not overly concern the Fed.
“Those monthly gains are simply unsustainable in an economy with a potential economic growth rate of less than 2%”.
Analysts were predicting a top line job creation figure of around 200,000 new jobs for the month in line with the three-month average.
These reports follow declining expectations from employers throughout the U.S. Britain’s unemployment rate fell to a five-year low in the first quarter, intensifying the debate over when the Bank of England should begin raising interest rates.
Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen said past year that adding 100,000 jobs a month is enough to absorb new entrants to the labor force.
The February and March jobs numbers were also revised down by a total of 19,000. Beyond fighting inflation (which is nowhere in sight), there’s little reason for the Fed to use interest rate hikes to control asset bubbles, so there’s no incentive for a rate increase in the near future.
The federal agency says the country lost 51,700 manufacturing jobs between December and April – with 23,200 of them in Alberta. The labor force dropped by 362,000 in April. Mining payrolls fell 8,000 last month.
Average hourly earnings for all employees increased 8 cents to 25.53 USA dollars, following an increase of 6 cents in March. Construction hiring slipped to 1,000 from an average of 24,000, and government shed 11,000 after adding an average of 16,000 in the first quarter. “To truly get the economy working again, we must address the overregulation, overtaxation, and lack of access to credit that are holding businesses – and the labor market – back”.
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Construction employment is expected to have slowed after nine straight months of gains, with home building showing some signs of fatigue in April. Cheap oil continues to hammer the industry.
