Canada’s unemployment rate holds steady as a robust 28,400 jobs are added to the economy

There was a massive 50,700 gain in public sector workers, but this was offset by a drop in 22,300 within the broad private sector. 

The loss in the broad private sector was led by a sizable 44,200 decline in the number of self-employed workers.

Among the overall job gains, only 7,300 were for full-time positions, while the remainder were in part-time work. 

The services-producing industry led the overall gain, adding 25,100 positions, namely in the transportation and warehousing (up 14,500) and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing (up 11,300) industries. The professional, scientific and technical services suffered the largest loss of 19,200 jobs.

Total average hourly wages fell again in June, by 0.6% from May, but wages are holding steady with a 2.0% gain from a year ago.

Among the provinces, there were big jumps in employment in Ontario (up 40,300) and Alberta (up 22,000), rising 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively.

Outlook
On the surface, the labour force survey results for June may look encouraging, but there are some signs of weakness, especially as a significant chunk of the new jobs added in June were in part-time work. As well, the public sector propped up the economy this month, but this is likely only temporary. We continue to believe that there will be declines in public sector employment, especially in the face of fiscal restraint at the provincial and federal levels. However, there have been some definite pockets of strength, like the big jump in the number of construction and transportation jobs in Ontario.
IHS