Canada: Projecting a 20K decline in employment in February – RBC CM

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets are projecting a 20K decline in Canadian employment in February following six consecutive monthly gains totaling 239K.

Key Quotes

“Those gains look overdone and some pullback therefore seems due. A small goods sector increase (+5K) should be more than offset by a 25K in services, which has 210K of the gains in the past six months. A smaller decline in the labour force than employment should see the unemployment rate tick up to 6.9%. Benign hourly wage growth (just 1.0% y/y for permanent employees) and recent declines in actual hours worked (down 1.3% from November to January) were both flagged by the BoC in their March 1st rate statement and will be closely watched.”