Job picture continues to brighten

OTTAWA — The labour market posted a 10thstraight 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 a surge of 112,000 full-time positions. The rise in full-time 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.

Scotiabank’s Derek Holt said wage growth has seen some considerable gains in recent months and was only 0.5 per cent as recently as April.

“There is serious consideration to be given to the argument that the Bank of Canada is behind wage and price pressures that may be starting to spiral upward,” Holt wrote Friday in a research note to clients.

He said the squeeze could lead the inflation-targeting central bank towards another interest-rate hike as early as October.

Overall, Holt called the quality of the job growth “solid.”

CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld had a different take on the report.

He said Canada’s job marketwas “ho-hum” last month and in line with other signals of a moderation in economic growth.