OTTAWA - Canada's employment recovery is now almost complete after a strong April added 58,300 new jobs -- almost all in Ontario -- and enough good jobs to finally lift full-time work back to pre-recession peaks.
The encouraging signals helped stop the recent slide in the Canadian dollar. The loonie rose by almost a cent in early morning trading to 104.25 cents US, although it gave back half the gains by early afternoon.
In a quirk of the report, almost all the jobs came in Ontario, whereas in the rest of the country employment was mostly flat.
There were a few flies in the ointment to Friday's surprisingly strong employment report, but the strengths overpowered the weaknesses. The headline number was almost three times what economists had expected after March's weak performance.
The unemployment rate fell one tenth of a point to 7.6 per cent, matching the lowest level since the early months of the 2008-2009 recession, when it peaked at 8.7 per cent. The soft spot was that most, 41,100, were part-time jobs.
But even so, the addition of 17,200 full-time employees was almost enough to match economists' expectations for all workers. Most were in the private sector and few were in the suspect self-employment category.
The pick-up meant that the economy had finally recouped all the full-time jobs that were lost during the 2008-2009 recession, although total hours remained slightly under the peak.
"This is a pretty encouraging report," said Douglas Porter of BMO Capital Markets. "There was a sense we could be hit by a negative jobs report, but what we see this morning is that the recovery continues to roll forward."
Some economists, including David Madani of Capital Economics, were skeptical that the job gains could be sustained going forward, given the expected slowdown in the U.S. economy and Canadian housing markets.
But even if April was an anomaly, Porter pointed out that the trend line of Canada's labour market has been mostly positive. Using a three-month rolling average, jobs have risen at a 24,000 a month pace and full-time employment by 28,000 a month, a strong forward momentum, he said.
The U.S. jobs situation, while still lagging behind Canada, also saw a strong month, showing some strength as 244,000 new workers were added.
Normally, a strong employment report would put pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates as a precaution against inflation.
Scotiabank economist Derek Holt doubted that would be the effect this time, however. Instead, bank governor Mark Carney will likely take solace that the froth appears to be coming off commodity prices, particularly oil, which this week fell below US$100 a barrel.
"The correction in commodities, if it sticks, would ease up on the inflation concerns across a number of global central banks," Holt said. "As well, wage growth actually decelerated a bit in the past month to 2.4 per cent year-over-year, using the Bank of Canada's preferred permanent employees measure."
"That can constrain inflation concerns more than any upside surprise in jobs in terms of spooking the bank," he said.
Holt still believes Carney won't hike the trendsetting interest rate from the current one per cent until October.
Almost all of the gains in April -- 54,800 -- came in the province of Ontario and most were in the services sector. In particular, finance, insurance, real estate and leasing saw a 19,000 jobs gain, and business, building and other support services chipped in with 17,000 new jobs.
In the goods sector, employment in natural resources increased by a modest 6,600 jobs, and the key manufacturing and construction sectors were mostly flat.
However, manufacturing and construction have seen increases in employment of 3.3 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively over the past year.
April was less kind to much of the country. While Newfoundland and Labrador saw a significant 3,100 jobs increase, six out of 10 provinces experienced an overall drop in employment levels, although all were modest relative to their population.
