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Canada’s economy erased 200,000 jobs in January, almost double the 110,000 economists had forecast, due to far-reaching restrictions on movement and business in the midst of the Omicron surge.
Unemployment rose from 6 percent to 6.5 last month, its first tick up in nine months, according to Statistics Canada.
Total hours worked had returned to pre-COVID levels in November, but now have slid back to 2.2 percent below that mark, with 10 percent of the nation’s employees missing time at work in January.
The average hourly wage in Canada grew 2.4 percent during the month, compared to 2.7 percent in December.
The number of employees who worked less than half their usual number of hours in January grew 66.1 percent month on month, the largest jump since March 2020.
However, the manufacturing sector added 23,000 jobs last month, COVID hospitalizations are declining, and provincial governments are lifting virus-related restrictions.
“That’s the beginnings of a recipe for another swift post-COVID rebound, so central bankers are still on track to hike rates in March,” Royce Mendes, a managing director of financial firm Desjardins Group, said to Yahoo! Finance.
“The Canadian labor market showed impressive ability to rebound after previous waves last year, and some of the prevailing conditions that helped the recovery, like elevated employer hiring appetite, remain,” jobs website Indeed’s senior economist Brendon Bernard told Yahoo.
“Progress should get back on the right track, but will require ongoing positive economic momentum to sustain it,” he cautioned.
TRENDPOST: Canada still has not learned the lesson of the COVID War: turning off the economy to halt the virus’s infection kills the patient while you’re trying to save him.
As we have detailed in this Trends Journal, out of a population of 38,271,761… some 38,000 allegedly died of the virus over the course of two years, or 0.0507 percent per year, and over the course of 24 months, it is a grand total of 0.00422 percent per month.
And as we have noted, the vast majority were 80 years of age or older. Yet, they locked down the entire economy, on-and-off for some two years.
For more Canadian trends and analysis see, “TRUCKER’S FREEDOM CONVOY, MEGATREND TROUNCED BY PRESSTITUTES AND POLITICIANS” in this issue.