Canada's unemployment rate held steady at 5.8 per cent in February as job growth soldiered on, despite the economic downturn in the United States.
In the report released this morning, Statistics Canada said the economy added 43,000 jobs in February and the proportion of adult Canadians with jobs hit a record high of 63.9 per cent.
The unemployment rate is at a 33-year low and Statistics Canada says there have been 361,000 jobs created in the past year.
The U.S. also released their job numbers from February and BNN's Michael Kane told Canada AM that there's" an interesting dichotomy" between the two reports.
The U.S. lost 63,000 jobs in February, with losses in many of the main sectors such as construction and manufacturing.
Based on the two reports, the Canadian dollar jumped to US $1.025.
In Canada, most of the job gains were in Ontario. Large gains in construction, business and public administration offset losses in the manufacturing sector.
Other notes of interest from the report:
- Full-time jobs have grown at three times the pace of part-time jobs
- The year-over-year hourly-wage growth was 4.9 per cent, above the 2.2 per cent increase in consumer prices
- February was the seventh month in a row with year-over-year hourly wage growth of at least four per cent
- Alberta's adult population has the highest job participation rate, with 74.5 per cent of all adults employed
- Nova Scotia lost 3,800 jobs and had its unemployment rate creep up to 7.7 per cent
