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Canadian economy adds 66.8k jobs in January, jobless rate rises to 5.8 pct

Canadian economy added 66.8k jobs in the month of January. The jobless rate rose to 5.8 percent as more Canadians were looking for work, sending the labor force participation rate 0.2 percentage point higher to 65.6 percent. The economy added 30.9k full-time jobs, with 36k part-time jobs. Employment in the public sector rose 15.9k as private hiring rose by 111.5k net positions.

Younger Canadians led the way, with 52.8k net positions added among those aged 15 to 24. Employment was little changed among working age and older Canadians.

Sector wise, service sector led hiring in the month, adding 99.2k net positions, aided by trade, professional services and public administration. On the contrary, the goods sectors pulled back by 32.3k overall, on widespread softness throughout subsectors.

Meanwhile, wages accelerated slightly to 1.8 percent year-on-year for permanent employees, in spite of the boost from last year’s minimum wage hike falling out of the data. On the contrary to the solid headline gains, aggregate hours worked dropped 0.3 percent in January.

On a trend basis, labor market continue to be strong. The six month average rate of hiring stood at 32.8k per month in January, with employment up 1.8 percent year-on-year.

“While we should hardly throw a parade for one month's data, the uptick in wage growth after a few months in the doldrums is a welcome development, particularly as the boost from last year's minimum wage hike should be largely out of the data”, noted TD Economics.

At 18:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Canadian Dollar was neutral at 28.0909, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 20.6295 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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