Economy adds 58,300 jobs in April

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TAVIA GRANT
Globe and Mail Update
Published Friday, May. 06, 2011 7:06AM EDT

The Canadian economy added a greater-than-expected 58,300 jobs last month, most of them part time, lowering the country's unemployment rate by a notch.

The country’s jobless rate fell to 7.6 per cent in April from 7.7 per cent a month earlier, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The gains come after two months of little change and mean employment has risen by 283,000 positions over the past year. Full-time positions are now back to pre-recession levels though the number of hours worked is still 0.6 per cent below October, 2008 levels.

“While one can quibble with the underlying quality of the hiring, given that it was led by part-time workers, the overall picture is one of an economy moving gradually back to full employment,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets in a note.

Much of last month's gains were in part-time positions, which rose by 41,100 compared with 17,200 new full-time jobs, the agency said. Still, over the past year full-time work has grown by 1.9 per cent compared with 0.8 per cent for part-time work.

Some of April's job growth may be linked to temporary hiring for the election and the census.

Economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting 20,000 new jobs last month and an unchanged jobless rate after employers unexpectedly shed 1,500 positions in March.

The finance, insurance, real estate and leasing sector as well as in business, building and other support services led last month's increase while other industries were little changed.

Among provinces, Ontario and Newfoundland led the increase. Nova Scotia and Manitoba saw declines while other provinces were fairly flat.

Both private and public-sector payrolls rose last month. Over the past year, employment in the public sector has grown 2.8 per cent while the private sector has expanded 1.6 per cent. Self-employment's been little changed.