Does the math, math?

At 8:30 EST this morning, the Canadian employment report rolled out. Of course the headline number showed that Canada added 37000 jobs. Cool, right? Well not so fast. Dig a little deeper and the numbers start to look a little less cool.

On the net, yes, 37,000 jobs were created, however 49,000 of the jobs were part time, so I think we would agree that 37,000 minus 49,000 is actually a negative number. Doing some simple math, we lost about a lot more income by losing the 49,000 full time jobs, than can be replaced with 37,000 part time jobs. Not really a lot to be excited by there.

Okay, so lets look at year over year and see if the math is mathing there. Well, Canada added a total of 345,000 jobs ( +1.70% ) in the last 12 months , however the working age population grew by  1,000,000 ( + 3.10% ). So more people, and less jobs. Strike 2.

Well, let’s look at private sector employment vs. government ( pubic sector ) employment. Well, In January, public sector jobs were up by 48,000 jobs, while there was little to no change in private sector hiring or self employment. Not exactly great when all of the hiring taking place is funded by government and taxpayers. This tells me that private sector employers are not hiring, and the only reason we saw a bump in jobs in January is because the government is hiring more people. Not exactly sustainable. Strike 3

Rest assured at the press conferences they will flog the 37,000 new job number. That is all you will hear about. However, in reality, the employment picture is looking worse and worse all the time. Wages paid came in hotter than expected, up 5.3%, and show no signs of slowing down.

If you had a rate cut on your 2024 bingo card for March, you might want to get a new bingo card. The 6 month Canada bond shows a chance of another hike from the BOC. Not saying it happens, but rate cuts could be farther away than you think.