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Mar 12, 2021, 2:29 PM GMT
#UnemploymentRate

Canadian Unemployment Drops Significantly in February; Job Creation Speeds Up

Canadian labour market added 259 thousand new jobs in February

Statistics Canada just published the labour market survey for February. According to the findings of the report, headline unemployment has decreased by 1.2 per cent from a month prior.

The unemployment rate was thus revised down to 8.2 per cent, which measures a far better performance compared to the projections of the initial market forecasts. They were expecting headline unemployment to consolidate around 9.2 per cent. This is the best performance on record since the coronavirus crisis began in March last year.

Canada's unemployment rate fell to 8.2 per cent in February from January's 9.4 per cent

The labour market added 259.2 thousand new jobs in February, which represents a seesaw rebound from January's recorded contraction of 212.8 thousand lost jobs. In contrast, the preliminary forecasts were anticipating a much more subdued expansion of the labour market by only 98.5 thousand new jobs.

The welcoming news comes just days following BOC's decision to hold the policy rate unchanged for the time being. The positive trend of speeding job creation parallels the situation in the U.S., where the national labour market was also able to grow considerably last month.

Meanwhile, the Canadian dollar continues to strengthen against its U.S. counterpart, despite the greenback's recent bullish rebound. As can be seen on the 4H chart below, the USDCAD is currently consolidating below the support-turned-resistance area (in green).

The price action continues to be concentrated below the 50-day MA (in green) and the 100-day MA (in blue) - signifying a perfect descending order. The underlying bearish sentiment is further elucidated by the MACD indicator, which underpins growing bearish momentum.

Notice, however, that despite the robust bearish bias in the market, a potential throwback to the resistance area's lower boundary (at 1.26200) is still possible.

The USDCAD continues to depreciate following the release of Canada's February unemployment numbers