Economy churns out 19,400 more jobs

OTTAWA The nation’s labour market stayed hot last month, pumping out another 19,400 net jobs — and the vast majority of the new work was full-time, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The March results fuelled an already upward trajectory in employment and provided yet another piece of evidence that the economy has been building momentum for months.

However, while the report was largely welcomed by analysts as a positive signal, some of its finer details pointed to areas of softness.

The country’s unemployment rate crept up last month to 6.7 per cent from 6.6 per cent, primarily because more people were looking for work, the agency said.

The report also found that 95 per cent of the new positions — or 18,400 jobs — were created in the more precarious category of self-employment, which can include people working for a family business without pay.

The fresh data also showed a continued weakness in the key area of wage growth. On average, Canadian earners saw their pay increase 1.1 per cent over the last year — a period during which consumer prices climbed by about two per cent.

The survey results arrived as Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz prepares to make a scheduled announcement next week on the trendsetting interest rate.

Poloz is widely expected to keep the rate at 0.5 per cent on Wednesday.

Economists had expected job gains of 5,000 last month and the unemployment rate to increase to 6.7 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters.

Last month’s overall employment increase, which included 18,400 full-time positions or 95 per cent of all the new jobs, suggests the country’s upward trend continued for a fourth consecutive month. But the gains in February and March were low enough that the agency deems them statistically insignificant.

The country lost 2,400 positions in the services sector last month, but added 21,800 factory jobs thanks to the biggest month-to-month surge in manufacturing work since 2002.

The manufacturing sector added 24,400 positions — mostly in Ontario and to a lesser degree in Alberta — to climb back up to the same level it was 12 months earlier.