This week’s job numbers are likely the last data point required for another interest hike later this week.
The latest StatsCan job survey showed the country added 60,000 positions last month. Clearly, the economy has not been slowed enough by rising interest rates to persuade employers to start trimming payrolls. In fact, they are going the other way which likely paves the way for another rate hike.
Here in Saskatchewan, we were contributors to the job growth as 1,800 more people were added to local payrolls. But the more significant point is that nearly 3,000 workers went from part-time to full-time which brought the total of full-time workers up almost 5,000 while part-timer numbers fell 2,300.
And the number of people of working age either holding a job or looking for one went up in June – by about 4,000 – so this trend is likely to continue.
This generally upbeat report underscores the notion that the Bank of Canada will feel it has no choice but to hike raise the benchmark rate at least one more time.
