The chart at the top shows the unemployment rate. Unlike the U.S., the participation rate has been steady, and so progress in reducing the unemployment rate has stalled. In June 2014, it was 7.1%. By way of comparison, the unemployment rate first hit 7.2% in July 2011 - almost exactly three years earlier. In other words, despite an epic commodities bull market and still massive condo construction, there has been almost no reduction of slack in the labour market.
The chart above, which depicts the aggregate growth rate of employment, does not inspire confidence in the outlook.
Barring some form of growth miracle in the United States, or some pass-through from energy into core inflation, it is hard to see the Bank of Canada doing anything other than sitting on the sidelines for a considerable period.
See Also:
(c) Brian Romanchuk 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Posts may be moderated, and there may be a considerable delay before they appear.
Although I welcome people who disagree with me, please be civil.
Please note that my spam comment filter appears to dislike long "anonymous" posts.
Note: if you want to post comments from Apple devices (iPhone, iPad), you apparently need to turn off "prevent cross-site tracking" in Safari privacy settings. (The reason presumably is that another URL handles comments, and so the user session needs to be preserved when redirected to that site. I don't like this, but this is not enough to make me switch my hosting service.)