Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Canada's economy appears to be backing away from the rapid jobs growth seen earlier this year, with July marking the second-straight month of job losses, even as the unemployment rate held steady.
The jobless rate stayed at 4.9 per cent in July, the lowest since comparable record-keeping began in 1976, Statistics Canada reported Friday in its latest labour force survey. The economy lost 31,000 jobs, following on a loss of 43,000 jobs in June.
Indeed senior economist Brendon Bernard said while the loss is still within the margin of error of the survey it nonetheless signals a shift.
"It looks like the employment recovery has shifted from the gas pedal going down strong to more neutral gear," said Bernard.
Bernard said the unemployment rate remained unchanged from June despite the jobs loss because of a dip in the labour force participation rate.
The reports notes that the proportion of people who are working or actively looking for work has fallen from the historic high it reached in March 2022.
Canada's labour market remains exceptionally tight, with more than one million job vacancies across the country.
Statistics Canada's latest report says despite the ongoing labour shortage, there is no evidence of a rise in the proportion of people leaving or switching jobs.
Additionally, the labour participation rate for Canadians between the ages of 25 and 54 is relatively unchanged from where it was pre-pandemic.
For the month of July, the number of public sector employees fell, while the number of self-employed workers rose. There was little change in the number of private sector workers.
CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham noted that the job losses in July were concentrated in the services sector, including wholesale and retail, education and health in a email sent on Friday morning.
"With some of those sectors reporting high vacancy rates, labour supply rather than demand appears to be the main issue," Grantham said.
Bernard said he's been expecting a stronger recovery of the accommodation sector after being hard hit by the pandemic, but the momentum hasn't materialized.
"I think part of the story is just that people have shifted to other sectors," Bernard said.
The pace of wage growth also held steady compared with June, with average hourly wages rising 5.2 per cent year over year.
Canada's labour shortage has been driven by demographic changes in the population, with retirement numbers having outpaced the number of people entering the workforce. But University of Waterloo economics professor Mikal Skuterud expects things to ease in the long run.
"Twelve to eighteen months from now, I would be very surprised if labor markets are as tight as they are now. And I think the difference will be quite substantial," Skuterud said.
The Statistics Canada report also looked at the ongoing healthcare worker shortage, with a focus on nurses. According to Statistics Canada, more than one in five nurses worked paid overtime hours in July, the highest level since comparable data became available in 1997.
For comparison, about 10 per cent of all other employees worked overtime in July.
As Canada faced the seventh wave of COVID-19 infections, 11.2 per cent of nurses were off sick for at least part of the week when the labour force survey was conducted.
The Bank of Canada is paying close attention to employment levels in the country as it gears up to make its next key interest rate announcement in September, when it's expected to raise interest rates once more.
While economic growth slows in the country as the central bank attempts to tame inflation with higher interest rates, economists have noted that the tight labour market makes the slowdown unique in its nature.
The Bank of Canada is hoping for a "soft landing," where inflation falls without interest rate hikes trigging a serious economic downturn.
"Everything I'm seeing is making me increasingly optimistic that we may at least have a soft landing," Skuterud said. "We're still seeing remarkably strong labor markets across the country."
CIBC expects the central bank to justify another supersized rate hike by pointing toward Canada's historically low unemployment and ongoing wage growth.
"Evidence that the economy is slowing due to weakening demand, rather than supply constraints, will bring a pause in this rate hike cycle following the next hike," Grantham said.
A quick look at Canada's July employment (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
Here are the jobless rates last month by province (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
Statistics Canada also released seasonally adjusted, three-month moving average unemployment rates for major cities. It cautions, however, that the figures may fluctuate widely because they are based on small statistical samples. Here are the jobless rates last month by city (numbers from the previous month in brackets):
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2022
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
After more than a century, Boy Scouts of America is rebranding as Scouting America, another major shakeup for an organization that once proudly resisted change.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
In March, Indonesian officials and local fishermen rescued 75 people from the overturned hull of a boat off the coast of Indonesia. Until now, little was known about why the boat capsized.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.