OTTAWA — Canadian employment rebounded in March, with an unexpected gain powered by services from retailing to transportation and part-time work, easing concern the oil rout would undercut the nation’s economy.
Employment rose by 28,700 following a loss of 1,000 in February, while the March jobless rate remained at 6.8 percent, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected the jobless rate would rise to 6.9 percent and that employment would be unchanged.
The report suggests that while Canada’s economy is being hurt by falling oil prices, the impact may not be as dire as some have worried, reducing pressure on policymakers to offer fresh stimulus to the world’s 11th largest economy. It also provides a break to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who faces an election in October.
“It will provide comfort for policy makers, but it’s still early going yet,” said Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada.
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz made a surprise interest-rate cut in January to provide “insurance” against the oil shock and has another decision April 15. Finance Minister Joe Oliver is releasing his 2015 budget April 21.
Employment rose by about 63,000 in the first quarter amid the oil price shock, Statistics Canada said, almost double the gains in the fourth-quarter of last year.
A string of high-profile firings in the energy and retail industries has been taking a toll on Canadians’ job security, recent polling suggests. The share of Canadians who say their employment isn’t fully secure rose to 15 percent in the week ending April 3, the highest since June 2013, according to a weekly survey by Nanos Research Group. The share who say their jobs are at least somewhat secure has declined to 69 percent, the lowest since early January.
Poloz also warned in a Financial Times interview last month that the first-quarter could be “atrocious” for the Canadian economy. Those concerns haven’t yet materialized.
Retail and wholesale service jobs posted the biggest gain among the categories in March, at 19,800, followed by 15,900 for transportation and warehousing, bucking news in January that Target Corp. would liquidate its Canadian operations with as many as 17,600 job losses, one of the biggest single corporate layoffs in recent memory. Best Buy Canada, a unit of Best Buy Co., also said March 28 it will close 66 of its Future Shop electronics stores, while firing 1,500 full- and part-time workers.
In the oil industry, companies from Suncor Energy Inc. to Strad Energy Services Ltd. have cut thousands of jobs, with the Alberta government predicting 31,800 oil-related workers will lose their jobs this year. That didn’t stop employment at natural resources companies from rising by 6,300, following declines of about 26,000 in the prior two months, Statistics Canada said.
“March employment was a lot brighter than expected for an economy entering a rough patch for growth,” Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto, said in a note to investors.
Other releases have also helped to mute worries. Statistics Canada in recent weeks has reported the merchandise trade deficit narrowed in February as prices for exported energy recovered, and that the economy shrank a less-than-expected 0.1 percent in January as increased oil production made up for lower prices.
It wasn’t all positive. Friday’s jobs report showed most gains were in part-time positions, which rose by 56,800 in March, while full-time employment declined by 28,200. There was also a split between the 45,300 increase in services employment and a 16,500 fall in payrolls at goods-producing companies. A measure of hours worked in March was up just 0.1 percent from a year earlier.
Construction employment fell by 12,100 in March. Average hourly wages of permanent employees rose 1.9 percent in March from a year earlier.
Private companies added 19,300 workers and public-sector employment rose by 26,500 in March, Statistics Canada said. Workers designated by Statistics Canada as employees rose by 45,800 and the self-employed category decreased by 17,000.
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