Canada: Unemployment Rate stays unchanged at 5% in April, payrolls rise by 41,400

• Unemployment Rate in Canada held steady at 5% in April.
• Net Change in Employment: 41,400 vs 20,000 expected. 
• USD/CAD rises above 1.3500 as US jobs numbers surpassed expectations. 

The data published by Statistics Canada revealed on Friday that the Unemployment Rate stayed unchanged at 5% in April. This reading came in slightly better than the market expectation of 5.1%.

Further details of the publication revealed that the Net Change in Employment rose by 41,500, surpassing analysts' estimate of 20,000. The Participation Rate stay unchanged at 65.6% and the annual wage inflation remained at 5.2% in March. 

Key takeaways from the report:

• The unemployment rate was 5.0% in April, unchanged since December 2022.
• Employment increased in wholesale and retail trade (+24,000; +0.8%); transportation and warehousing (+17,000; +1.6%); information, culture and recreation (+16,000; +1.9%); as well as in educational services (+15,000; +1.0%). Employment decreased in business, building and other support services (-14,000; -1.9%).
• On a year-over-year basis, average hourly wages rose 5.2% (+$1.66 to $33.38) in April (not seasonally adjusted).
• Employment rose by 41,000 (+0.2%) in April. Since February, monthly employment growth has averaged 33,000, following cumulative increases of 219,000 in December 2022 and January 2023. 
• Part-time employment increased by 48,000 (+1.3%) in April, while full-time employment held steady. This was the first notable increase in part-time work since October 2022. 
• Compared with 12 months earlier, the number of private sector employees rose by 299,000 (+2.3%) in April 2023, while there were 81,000 (+2.0%) more people working in the public sector.
   

Market reaction 

The USD/CAD rose initially to 1.3505 after the jobs reports from Canada and the US, and then pulled back toward the 1.3490 area.