Statistics Canada says the Canadian economy created more jobs in December than economists expected.
The agency says 40,000 new jobs were created last month. Economists had expected an increase of just 5,000.
The unemployment rate slipped by one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.1%. That compared with expectations of an increase to 7.3%. The better-than-expected results follow a strong November when the economy created 59,300 jobs. December’s gains were entirely from new full-time work.
Statistics Canada says 41,200 new full-time jobs were added. Part-time employment saw a decline of 1,400 jobs.
Provincially, Nova Scotia was the only province to show a drop in the number of jobs, while the other provinces either posted gains or were little changed for the month.