- Prior month 50.5K
- Employment Change 90.9K vs 25.0K estimate. 3rd gain in the last 4 months
- Unemployment Rate 6.7% vs 6.9% estimate. Last month 6.8%
- Full time employment 57.5K vs 54.2K last month
- Part time employment 33.5K vs -3.6K last month.
- Average hourly earnings YoY 3.7% vs 3.9% last month
- Participation rate 65.1% vs 65.1% last month
Details:
- Educational services: +17,000 jobs (+1.1%)
- Transportation and warehousing: +17,000 jobs (+1.6%)
- Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing: +16,000 jobs (+1.1%)
- Health care and social assistance: +16,000 jobs (+0.5%)
And more:
- Overall employment: Increased by 413,000 (+2.0%) year-over-year in December 2024, comparable to December 2023 (+2.1%) and the pre-pandemic average for December (2017-2019) of +1.9%.
- Public sector employment:
- Rose by 40,000 (+0.9%) in December, marking the second consecutive monthly increase.
- Up 156,000 (+3.7%) year-over-year, driven by gains in educational services and health care and social assistance.
- Private sector employment:
- Little changed in December (+27,000; +0.2%).
- Increased by 191,000 (+1.4%) year-over-year.
- Self-employment:
- Rose by 24,000 (+0.9%) in December, the first increase since February.
- Total self-employment gains for the year amounted to 64,000 (+2.4%).
Geographically:
- Alberta: +35,000 jobs (+1.4%)
- Ontario: +23,000 jobs (+0.3%)
- British Columbia: +14,000 jobs (+0.5%)
- Nova Scotia: +7,400 jobs (+1.4%)
- Saskatchewan: +4,000 jobs (+0.7%)
- Manitoba: -7,200 jobs (-1.0%)
- Employment remained little changed in other provinces.
- Total hours worked: Increased by 0.5% in December and 2.1% year-over-year.
- Average hourly wages: Up 3.8% year-over-year (+$1.32 to $35.77) in December, following 4.1% growth in November (not seasonally adjusted).
The USDCAD was trading at 1.4409 prior to the report and moved lower and then higher as the market reacted to both jobs reports.
The move lower saw the low price stall right near the high of the cluster of MAs including the 200-hour MA at 1.4379 and the 100-hour MA at 1.4366. The low reached 1.4382 and bounced higher.
The snapback has now taken the price up toward targets on the topside including the 1.4435 swing level and the high swing area (and high of Red Box) between 1.4448 to 1.4466. It would need to get and stay above those levels to increase the bullish bias technically. Absent that, and the pair bias is higher, but the price remains in the range seen since December 18.
