The national unemployment rate stayed stagnant in March, a month in which the Canadian economy generated fewer jobs than expected.

Statistics Canada released its latest Labour Force Survey on Friday morning, showing a jump of 17,900 new jobs -- a result well below the 26,000 that economists had expected for the month of March.

The gains came as a result of an increase in part-time employment, which increased by 32,200 jobs. Full-time employment declined by 14,200 jobs.

Economists are saying that the StatsCan report indicates moderate, but steady progress on the jobs front in Canada, said BNN's Michael Kane.

"This is more of one of those reports that shows its steady-as-she-goes," Kane told CTV News Channel on Friday morning.

The unemployment rate was 8.2 per cent, the same as it was the previous month.

Kane said the unemployment rate persisted at a time when jobs were created because "more people were actually looking for jobs."

StatsCan said the "only notable employment increase" was in professional, scientific and technical services which saw a net increase of 38,000 jobs. Additionally, the construction industry added 21,000 jobs and the natural resources industry added more than 13,000 jobs, largely in the mining and oil and gas extraction sectors.

In contrast, business, building and other support services (a net loss of 26,000 jobs) and in transportation and warehousing (down 20,000 jobs) saw big declines.

Since last July, the country has had a net gain of 176,000 jobs, StatsCan said, an increase of about 1.1 per cent overall. Kane said that figure was "another indicator that Canada is well on its feet" in the aftermath of the recession.

Over that same time period, full-time work has grown by 1.4 per cent, while part-time work has fallen 0.6 per cent -- the long-term trend being the opposite of the short-term results seen in March.

The statistics agency also said the number of nationwide public sector employees has grown by about 2 per cent since last July, while the number of their private sector peers has increased by 1.4 per cent. The number of self-employed persons has dropped by about 1.3 per cent.

Kane said seeing a drop in the number of self-employed persons may be a significant development in terms of the jobs available to Canadians.

"When you're coming out of a recession, a lot of people will get into sales work, or anything else where they can be self-employed. And we did see those self-employed numbers go up during the worst part of the recession, but that number is starting to settle down now," he said.

Long-term, Canadians can expect to see the unemployment rate drop steadily as the economy returns to normal, said Patricia Croft, the chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management.

"The unemployment rate nationally has stalled out because people are coming back to the labour force," Croft told CTV News Channel during an interview from Toronto on Friday morning.

"I think they are sensing that economic conditions are improving, that it's time to get out there and get a job once again, and that's going to keep perhaps the unemployment rate elevated for now, but over the course of this year, I expect that unemployment will continue to drift lower."

Following the release of the StatsCan numbers, there was a rush of Canadian dollar sales, Scotia Capital reported, which pushed the rising loonie below parity with the U.S. dollar.

More specifically, the Bank of Montreal's currency desk said the dollar dropped from 100.01 cents US to about 99.90 cents US, after the report's release.

With files from The Canadian Press