While the summer was sizzling in B.C. last month, the labour market was in the midst of cooling.
The province shed 4,300 jobs from the economy in August, according to data from Statistics Canada released Friday.
This helped push the unemployment rate up 0.3 percentage points to 5.8 per cent – still a far cry from 6.6 per cent nationally (up 0.2 percentage points from July).
BMO chief economist Doug Porter described the national numbers as “mixed.”
Full-time jobs were the biggest victim of B.C.’s soft employment numbers, with 18,700 positions lost compared with the 14,400 part-time jobs gained.
The biggest industry losses for the province hit health care/social assistance (-5,600 jobs) and business/building/other support services (-5,000 jobs).
Retail/wholesale trade (+6,800 jobs) and the tech sector (+3,600 jobs) benefitted from the most gains.
“This report highlights the steady build-up of slack in the Canadian economy and specifically in the labour market,” Porter said in a note, referring to the national figures.
He added that there is still a lot of data to be released before the Bank of Canada’s next rate decision in October, but the odds of the central bank cutting its overnight rate by 50 basis points are building.
The Bank of Canada has made three rate cuts this year, all of which have been 25 basis points.
RBC assistant chief economist Nathan Janzen said Statistics Canada noted that a decline in labour force participation has been concentrated among younger workers over the past year – a cohort that may have stopped looking for work after being disproportionately impacted by the slowdown in hiring.
"There was nothing in the July Canadian labour force data to say that the ongoing cooling in labour markets has run its course. The unemployment rate is still up almost a percentage point from a year ago and would have increased further in July without a large drop in the labour force participation rate," he said in a note.
Janzen said he expects the central bank to cut its overnight rate next month.
