What it measures
Employment Change is the difference between the number of people with a job this month and last month, in thousands. Unlike the U.S. payrolls figure, it counts people, including the self-employed, rather than jobs on company payrolls. The unemployment rate comes from the same survey.
Who publishes it and when
Statistics Canada publishes the Labour Force Survey in The Daily once a month at 08:30 Toronto time, usually on a Friday early in the following month. It often shares a morning with the U.S. Employment Situation report.
How it is put together
Each month about 65,000 households are interviewed, giving information on roughly 100,000 people. Questions refer to a reference week that usually contains the 15th of the month, and interviews take place in the ten days after it. Households stay in the survey for six months, and one sixth of the sample is replaced each month.
Because it is a sample survey, monthly changes come with a margin of error: a change of a few tens of thousands can be within normal sampling noise.
What traders watch
Traders look at the headline together with the split between full-time and part-time jobs, the unemployment rate and wage growth. When the U.S. report comes out at the same moment, the Canadian dollar reacts to the difference between the two.
How markets have usually reacted
A stronger than expected figure has often lifted the Canadian dollar and Canadian bond yields as markets price a firmer Bank of Canada; a weaker one has often had the opposite effect. On shared mornings, the U.S. surprise can outweigh the Canadian one.
Common mistakes
- Reading a small change as meaningful when it is within the survey's margin of error.
- Trading USD/CAD on the Canadian figure alone when the U.S. jobs report is released at the same moment.
How a higher or lower figure is usually read
More jobs than last month is usually read as supportive for the Canadian dollar; fewer jobs as negative. Not a signal.
Release history
No past releases recorded yet.
Related news
- Canada Unemployment Rate
- Bank of Canada Rate Decision
- Canada Consumer Price Index (CPI)
- US Non-Farm Payrolls
- Economic calendar: every release this week in your time zone
- Lot size calculator: keep your risk the same around news
- How to use an economic calendar: what happens around a release, and how to plan for it
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Official source
Source: Statistics Canada. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Calendar data: www150.statcan.gc.ca
Published by Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey: www150.statcan.gc.ca