Labour Market Bumps Up Against Capacity Constraints Job vacancies abound in many sectors, yet employers have trouble finding workers to fill those jobs and retaining workers with so many options available. As the jobless rate falls to new record lows, net new employment has slowed. This is not dissimilar to the housing market, where supply is insufficient to meet demand. […]
Holy Smokes! Canadian Inflation Is At 6.7% StatsCanada today reported that consumer prices rose a whopping 6.7% year-over-year in March, a full percentage point above the 5.7% reading the month before. Market-driven interest rates shot up on the news as the prospects increase for another half-point rise in the overnight rate when the Bank of Canada meets again on June […]
Canadian March Home Sales Posted Their Biggest Decline Since June Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that rising interest rates were already dampening housing activity well before the Bank of Canada’s jumbo spike in the key policy rate in mid-April. National home sales fell back by 5.4% on a month-over-month basis in March. The decline […]
Bank of Canada Hikes Rates by 50 BPs, Signalling More To Come The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised the overnight policy rate by a full 50 basis points for the first time in 22 years. This was a widely telegraphed action that will be followed by the US Federal Reserve next month. While the BoC was the […]
Labour Market Tightens Further Statistics Canada released the March Labour Force Survey this morning, reporting a 72,500 jobs gain from the whopping 337,000 surge in February. Employment increased in both the goods- and services-producing sectors. Gains were concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. The unemployment rate fell to 5.3%, its lowest monthly rate since the data series was released in 1976, […]