Count to 100!!

Well, the Canadian December employment report is out, and it has to make a person laugh. Canada added 100 jobs in December. Yep, just 100. Not 100,000, but 100, although we LOST 23.500 full time jobs, and added basically 23,600 part time jobs, so really it is safe to say that earnings power dropped drastically in December.  Based on how much Canadian government mis counts numbers , I am not even certain this 100 is even accurate, and will likely be revised downward in the coming months. The major problem to me though, is that Canada had immigration of at least 80,000 people in December. If we assume 50% of those new immigrants are of working age, then we have a problem. If we added 100 jobs, but added 40,000 new people to fill those jobs, then the simple math says we are in trouble.

Lets contrast the Canadian employment report with the US report that saw 216,000 jobs created in December. Quite a difference. The Canadian and US economy are on a diverging path, and it is becoming more pronounced. 

Add this to the dropping PMI report we referenced earlier in the week, bonds yields back up on both sides of the border, and the CAD starting to lose ground on the USD, it all adds up to inflationary pressures building.

May be a great time to lock in some rate drops on your existing pipeline before lenders move up rates again.