The Canadian economy shed 35,700 jobs in November, reversing a rise in temporary work likely generated by October’s federal election, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The number of public-administration jobs fell by 32,500 in November to offset an October increase of 32,000 positions in the same category, the federal agency found in its monthly job-market survey.
The worse-than-expected drop in jobs helped nudge November’s unemployment rate up one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.1 per cent.
Avery Shenfeld, Chief Economist, CIBC Capital Markets , said Canada’s economy is being impacted by sluggish growth in global economy.
Listen“We are an export oriented economy,” Shenfeld said. “When the world isn’t a happy place, that spills over into Canada. And it’s now moving beyond resources, we’re seeing some job weakness in things like retailing.”
Even the falling Canadian dollar hasn’t been able to inject some vitality into the economy. There are two ingredients that are needed to see the weak looney deliver the economic payoff, Shenfeld said.
“One is time, because we’re going to need to attract the exporters who left Canada, we need to start having them choose Canada as a location to produce their exports,” said Shenfeld. “And the other is a better global market. We can be competitive but we also need customers, and right now the global economy is very soft, particularly in the developing world.”
One bright spot is the U.S. economy, which posted 211,000 jobs in November, Shenfeld said. However, he cautioned that one mixed spot for Canada in the U.S. economy remains the manufacturing sector.
“American manufacturers are struggling a bit in terms of selling overseas and some Canadian manufacturers are suppliers to those U.S. plants,” Shenfeld said. “So, we’re certainly benefitting from a healthy U.S. recovery but we also need more of the world to join in if we’re going to lever export growth as the source of getting the economy moving again.”
With files from The Canadian Press
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