March jobs: middling strength
Canada added roughly 14,000 jobs in March while the unemployment rate held at 6.7% and wages rose about 4.7% year‑over‑year. (canada.constructconnect.com) The print is described as stabilizing—enough to prevent a labour‑market collapse but not strong enough to spark a confidence‑led housing rebound. (canada.constructconnect.com)
Canada’s job market stopped sliding in March, but the rebound was small. Statistics Canada reported employment was “little changed” after two straight monthly losses. (statcan.gc.ca) Canada added 14,000 jobs in March, or 0.1%, after losing a combined 109,000 positions in January and February. The unemployment rate held at 6.7%, and the employment rate stayed at 60.6%. (statcan.gc.ca) Wage growth sped up even as hiring stayed soft. Average hourly pay for employees rose 4.7% from a year earlier to $37.73 in March, up from 3.9% annual growth in February. (statcan.gc.ca) The March reading landed in a labor market the Bank of Canada had already described as soft on March 18. The central bank said employment gains from late 2025 had been largely reversed in the first two months of 2026, while housing markets remained weak and growth was expected to stay modest as Canada adjusted to United States tariffs and trade-policy uncertainty. (bankofcanada.ca) That backdrop has fed into household caution. In the Bank of Canada’s fourth-quarter 2025 consumer survey, published January 19, 2026, respondents said high prices and economic uncertainty tied to the trade conflict were weighing on finances and spending plans, even though labor-market conditions had improved somewhat at the time. (bankofcanada.ca) The March gains were narrow, not broad-based. Employment rose by 15,000 in “other services,” which includes personal and repair work, and by 10,000 in natural resources, while finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing lost 11,000 jobs. (statcan.gc.ca) The regional picture was uneven too. British Columbia lost 19,000 jobs in March, while Manitoba added 11,000, Saskatchewan added 5,800, and Nova Scotia added 3,900. (statcan.gc.ca) The unemployment rate is no longer at last summer’s high, but it is still above pre-pandemic norms. Statistics Canada said March’s 6.7% rate was below the 7.1% peak reached in August and September 2025, yet above the 6.0% average from 2017 to 2019. (statcan.gc.ca) For now, March looks less like a turnaround than a pause. The labor market is no longer falling as fast as it did at the start of 2026, but the official data still show hiring, confidence and housing demand moving without much force. (statcan.gc.ca)
