Adjusted to US concepts, the unemployment rate in Canada was 5.9% in May, compared with 4.7% in the United States.
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Gains in full-time jobs and a boost in paid employment, as opposed to freelance work, also added to the strength of the report, he said.
Canada-wide, the unemployment rate was down 0.2 percentage points over the year, reaching its lowest rate since July 2015.
According to Statistics Canada, May’s jobless rate hovered at 7.8 per cent. The latter did even better, at +19,000. Jobs in manufacturing climbed as well, by 12,000, but there are still 1.4 per cent fewer manufacturing jobs in Canada today than a year ago.
Canada’s dollar strengthened by as much as 0.4 percent after the data was released before trading little changed at C$1.2721 per USA dollar at 9:53 a.m.
Overall, however, Canadian employment last month was up 0.6 per cent compared to 12 months earlier, the report said.
Employment in the manufacturing sector, which policy makers hope will help drive growth amid the current commodity- price weakness, was up 12,200 in May after two consecutive months of declines. Economists had forecast a slender increase of 1,750 jobs.
Home starts in Vancouver are +52% year to date, driven by a hyper-active multi-unit (i.e., condo) segment, +61%.
While Canada as a whole saw it’s unemployment rate fall from 7.1 to 6.9 per cent, Alberta’s rate was rising.
The total number of jobs in the province stood at 348,400, which was down by 900.
However, the actual impact of the wildfire on Alberta’s jobs numbers wasn’t entirely clear.
The province’s unemployment rate has soared by 1.9 percentage points compared with May of previous year and now sits at 7.8%.
Conscious of the extraordinarily hard circumstances being experienced by the residents of Fort McMurray during May (i.e., 80,000 people had to flee the city as it was surrounded, and in some neighborhoods overwhelmed, by flames), collection of labour force information in the region was suspended for the month.
Statistics Canada said it did not collect survey data for the Fort McMurray area, which was evacuated due to the fires. Nearly 20,000 public administration jobs were added, which was partly due to the temporary positions relating to the 2016 census.
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This will provide Ottawa’s statistical agency, and employers, with valuable information on summer student employment levels.
