The Canadian economy shed a surprising 88,000 jobs in January, with the losses concentrated in part-time work, Statistics Canada reported Friday.
The drop in employment — the biggest one-month slide in nine years — pushed the national jobless rate up by 0.1 percentage points to 5.9 per cent.
It’s a marked difference from November and December, when a total of 145,000 jobs were added.
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In January, Statistics Canada said part-time employment declined by 137,000. Meanwhile, full-time employment grew by 49,000.
The weak employment report for last month was worse than economists had been expecting. The market consensus was for a loss of roughly 9,000 jobs.
“Overall, a mysterious mix of good and bad, with the latter’s impact blunted by how strong job gains were in the lead-up to these figures,” CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld wrote in a commentary.
via CBC
