The average hourly wage in May was 4.8% higher than a year earlier and well above the most recent increase of 1.7% in consumer prices, says Statistics Canada.
According to its labour force survey, year-over-year increases in average hourly wages have exceeded 4%.
The labour market, however, slowed as just 8,400 jobs were created—all of which were part time.
The unemployment rate remained at 6.1% and over the past 12 months, employment has risen by 339,000 positions. The participation rate remained at its record high of 68%.
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Pooled Fund of Hedge Funds Struggle
Pooled fund of hedge funds failed to achieve positive returns during the first quarter of 2008, according to BNY Mellon Asset Servicing’s London office.
Over this period, the median return for these funds was -4.0%, the lowest return seen for these funds since the company began measuring pooled fund of hedge fund performance back in 2003.
“Along with one of the worst starts ever to a year for the equity markets,” says Alan Wilcock, performance and risk analytics manager at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, “pooled funds of hedge funds also suffered from negative returns in January and March, producing the lowest quarterly return we have seen.”
Despite experiencing a relatively weak performance during the first quarter, pooled fund managers still outperformed other key investment sectors including United Kingdom and overseas equity pooled funds, which returned -97% and -9.5%, respectively. Still, pooled fund of hedge funds were outperformed by real estate (-3.5%), U.K. bonds (-1.1%) and cash (1.3%).