Economy marks longest streak of job gains since ‘08

OTTAWA The labour market posted a 10th-straight month of net job gains in September to match the economy’s longest monthly streak since the financial crisis almost a decade ago, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The national unemployment rate stayed at a nine-year low of 6.2 per cent after Canada added 10,000 net new jobs, including 112,000 full-time positions. The rise in fulltime work more than offset a drop of 102,000 part-time jobs.

Wage growth also perked up in the latest survey, a long-awaited development after it remained surprisingly low earlier in the year despite the steady tightening of the country’s job market.

Experts underlined a lot of positives in a jobs report that arrived amid recent signs suggesting the economy is already starting to cool down, as widely expected, following red-hot start to the year.

“The underlying story is the economy is still churning out jobs at a pretty solid pace, the unemployment rate is slowly but surely grinding down and, yes, the majority of the job gains actually are in full-time positions,” BMO chief economist Doug Porter said in an interview. “So, I would categorize this as a robust report. The headline number isn’t that impressive, but the details were quite impressive.”

On average hourly wages, Porter said last month’s 2.2 per cent year-over-year growth “isn’t going to knock anybody’s socks off,” but he noted the number does mark a comeback from some mysteriously soft numbers earlier in the year.