Statistics Canada is reporting a record high unemployment rate as the economy added 289,600 jobs in May, with businesses reopening amid easing public health restrictions. The unemployment rate rose to 13.7 per cent, topping the previous high of 13.1 per cent set in December 1982 in more than four decades of comparable data. The increase […]
In a low-rate world where income is increasingly tough to find, more and more investors are getting into the riskier corners of lending to companies. A financial watchdog says that might cause problems in financial markets during a downturn. The Financial Stability Board, an international group created to co-ordinate financial regulators, released a report Thursday […]
Sun Life Financial Inc. says it has committed about $1.05 billion for a deal that will give it majority ownership of London-based InfraRed Capital Partners, a global investment manager with a focus on infrastructure. Toronto-based Sun Life says it will pay the equivalent of $515 million (300 million pounds) to acquire 80 per cent of […]
Sweden’s central bank has ended a five-year experiment of keeping its benchmark interest rate below zero, a policy that other countries have also adopted to try to improve economic growth. The country’s central bank, called the Riksbank, said Thursday it had decided to raise its benchmark interest rate to zero from -0.25 per cent, where […]
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister is calling for a merger of management services for the province’s public-sector pensions. Pallister says he’s not suggesting the funds themselves merge — only that they be managed as a group. He says a much larger pool of funds would be subject to lower management fees, and that could save roughly […]
New European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said Monday that economic growth “remains weak” in the 19 countries that use the euro but gave no indication she is contemplating adding to the stimulus enacted by her predecessor, Mario Draghi. Lagarde said in her first regular appearance before the European Parliament that manufacturing companies were hardest […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) says it is investing about $678 million in the common equity of Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC). PSBC is one of the largest retail banks in China with more than 400 million retail customers and nearly 40,000 branches. It is China’s largest bank by customers and distribution […]
The Canadian economy shed 35,700 jobs in November to reverse a rise in temporary work likely generated by October’s federal election, Statistics Canada said Friday. The number of public-administration jobs fell by 32,500 in November to offset an October increase of 32,000 positions in the same category, the federal agency found in its monthly job-market […]
Pension systems still feel effects of financial crisis
Pension systems remain under strain in many countries amid slow economic growth and moves by governments to shore up financial stability in the wake of the global financial crisis, a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development suggests. “The economic recovery remains sluggish in most OECD countries and, as a consequence, pension […]