Friday, October 7, 2011

Canada adds 61,000 jobs in Sept, jobless rate down

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A whopping 60,900 new jobs helped slice Canada's unemployment rate to 7.1 percent in September from 7.3 percent in August, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

This far exceeded the median forecast of 10,000 new jobs in a Reuters survey of economists after August's decline of 5,500. The most optimistic forecasters had predicted 30,000 new positions in September .

Adding to the positive news, September saw 63,800 full-time additions, while part-time employment declined by 2,900.

However, 38,400 of the new jobs were in educational services, presumably largely the result of the return to work of teachers and assistants who were laid off for the summer. Statscan tries to adjust for seasonality but said there had not been a consistent pattern in this sector in recent years.

The unemployment rate is the lowest since December 2008. The data should temper market expectations of a rate cut by the Bank of Canada as it signals an economy that is still humming despite dire news out of Europe. Another indicator the bank watches closely for inflationary pressure, showed the average hourly wage of permanent employees had risen by 1.6 percent from a year earlier.

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