US economy added 292,000 jobs in December and maintained 5% unemployment rate, the lowest unemployment rate in seven and half a year.
| Economic Data Actual Forecast Previous |
| Canada Employment Change 22.8K 10.4K -35.7K |
| Canada Unemployment Rate 7.1% 7.1% 7.1% |
| Canada Building Permits -19.6% -3.2% 9.1% |
| USA earnings per Hour 0.0% 0.2% 0.2% |
| USA Unemployment Rate 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% |
| USA Non-Farm Payroll 292K 203K 211K |
Though hourly earnings was low 0.0% for last month and fall below expected 0.2% and previous 0.2%, this will have little or no impact on the entire economic outlook, because the type of jobs been created are low earnings jobs and usually temporary.
“Job creation was solid in December,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York and a former Fed economist. “This should calm some fears about the U.S. economy losing growth momentum. It’s reassuring in the backdrop of some recent economic reports that were weak.”
“Members agreed that a range of recent labor market indicators, including ongoing job gains and declining unemployment, showed further improvement and confirmed that underutilization of labor resources had diminished appreciably since early this year,” according to the minutes, released on Wednesday.
Canada added 22,000 job in December while unemployment rate remain the same 7.1 percent, building permits plunged 19.6 percent.
The UK FTSE 100 jumped after the data was released, currently trading around 0.75% higher than the previous day’s closing value.