Canadian Employment Preview: Forecast From 4 Major Banks

Here you can find the forecasts of economists and researchers of 4 major banks regarding the upcoming employment data.

CIBC

“There was likely an echo in March from February’s boom in hiring. As restrictions were further relaxed, employment likely recovered more ground, particularly in the hardest-hit sectors of the economy. More Canadians are also expected to have reentered the labor force. All in all, we expect a 60K job gain in March. That said, there might be evidence that employment growth in some of the goods sectors that have provided strong tailwinds for the overall labor market and the economy as a whole waned in March. But, even that will likely be due to temporary factors such as maintenance shutdowns at oil extraction sites.”

TDS

“We look for the Canadian economy to add back another 150K jobs in March as the continued rollback of emergency measures in Ontario facilitates further recovery across parts of the service sector. Job growth of 150K would pull the unemployment rate lower to 7.7% and leave total employment just 2.3% below pre-covid levels.”

Citibank

“We expect a strong 175K increase in employment in March following a ~260K job gain in February. This would put employment at its highest level since pre-pandemic employment levels, with around 425K jobs still lost compared to February 2020.”

BBH

“A 90K gain is expected vs. 259.2k in February, while the unemployment rate is expected to fall a couple of ticks to 8.0%. Like the US, Canada saw a loss of momentum in the economy going into year-end but is seeing a strong recovery in Q1. Yet the vaccine rollout in Canada has lagged even the laggards in Europe and so maintaining momentum will be hindered somewhat. We expect fiscal policy to carry the burden of stimulus in 2021.”