The labour market added an unexpected 60,000 jobs in September, led by gains in the tariff-struck manufacturing sector.
Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate held steady at 7.1 per cent last month.
Economists had called for a gain of just 5,000 jobs in September, coming off losses of more than 100,000 positions over the previous two months.
StatCan said gains were concentrated in full-time work with 106,000 positions added in September, more than offsetting a drop in part-time work.
BMO chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients Friday that the September surprise is a good reminder to focus more on the longer-term trends in StatCan's typically volatile labour force survey.
He said the "big picture" shows employment in Canada is only slightly higher in 2025 — StatCan said the economy has added a modest 22,000 net jobs so far this year — as U.S. tariffs ratchet up uncertainty and continue to put pressure on critical Canadian industries.
Most surprising to Porter was that the trade-sensitive manufacturing industry saw its first job gains since January last month and led job growth among other sectors with 28,000 positions added. Before last month, manufacturing had seen a net loss of 58,000 jobs so far in 2025.
The health care and social assistance sector and agriculture industry were also contributing to job growth last month.
The wholesale and retail trade industry lost 21,000 positions in September, but StatCan noted the sector is still up by 61,000 positions year-over-year. The transportation and construction sectors were also shedding jobs in September.
Alberta, meanwhile, led job growth among the provinces with 42,500 positions added. Porter said that "mammoth gain" was Alberta's largest-ever job increase for a single month outside pandemic-era volatility.
Average hourly wages were up 3.3 per cent year-over-year last month, a tick higher than the rate seen in August.
The unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 rose two tenths of a point to 14.7 per cent in September — a 15-year high, outside the pandemic years — as students returning to school continued to struggle finding work after a tough summer jobs market.
The jobless rate among youth attending school was 17.1 per cent, up 3.1 percentage points from September 2024, StatCan said.
The September jobs report will mark the Bank of Canada’s last look at the labour market before its next interest rate decision on Oct. 29.
The central bank cut its policy rate by a quarter point to 2.5 per cent last month as it said the balance of risks in the economy was shifting away from higher prices and toward weaker growth.
Porter said the soft summer labour market was a big factor fuelling the September rate cut, so this solid jobs report raises the odds of a rate pause later this month.
TD Bank senior economist Andrew Hencic said in a note Friday that the September jobs figures may well "change the calculus" for the Bank of Canada. But he said the still-high unemployment rate and signs that underlying inflation is well behaved lately could suggest to the central bank that the economy still has "excess slack."
Hencic said the bar will now be higher for September inflation to come in below expectations to warrant another cut in October.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
