Economy adds 14,000 jobs in March: StatCan

Statistics Canada reported a modest rebound in the labour market in March after two consecutive months of job losses to start the year.

The agency said employers collectively added 14,000 jobs in March, roughly in line with economists’ expectations.

The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7 per cent.

StatCan said there was little variation in employment across age demographics, full- and part-time work and the private and public sectors in March.

“The bleeding stopped after two consecutive monthly employment declines, but March’s data continue the trend of soft labour market performance to start this year,” said Marc Desormeaux, vice-president of policy and economist at the Business Council of Canada, in an email Friday.

Growth was led by a category the agency calls “other services,” which includes repair and maintenance work in the economy. The 15,000 jobs added here offset a similar-sized decline in February, StatCan said.

The professional, scientific and technical services sector, the natural resources industry and tariff-sensitive manufacturing all posted job gains in March.

The finance, insurance, real estate and leasing sector led last month’s declines with a loss of 11,000 positions, which StatCan said was the industry’s first significant monthly decline since November 2023.

The manufacturing sector remains hard-hit by tariffs, Desormeaux noted, shedding 44,000 positions compared with March a year earlier when the United States first imposed tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum and autos.

“Today’s data continue to suggest that softness has spilled into services industries,” Desormeaux said.

A loss of 19,000 jobs in British Columbia last month followed a similar loss in February, pushing the province’s unemployment rate up to 6.7 per cent. That’s the highest level for the province’s jobless rate in about a decade, outside the COVID-19 pandemic.

Average hourly wages across the country, meanwhile, rose 4.7 per cent year-over-year — a jump from 3.9 per cent in February and the fastest pace since October 2024.

StatCan said some of the recent increase in wages is due to the “composition of employment,” meaning the economy isn’t adding or maintaining as many lower-paying jobs that typically pull down the wage growth average.

Controlling for compositional factors leaves average annual wage growth at 3.6 per cent in March, StatCan said, roughly in line with January and February’s figures.

Modest job gains in March follow an up-and-down stretch for the labour market. While the final four months of 2025 saw a rapid run-up in job growth, some of those gains were offset by a loss of more than 100,000 positions across January and February of this year.

On a year-over-year basis, StatCan said total employment was up by 87,000 positions in March.

“With the economy continuing to progress in fits and starts, and uncertainty sky-high, the outlook is for subdued job growth and a steady unemployment rate,” said TD Bank senior economist Andrew Hencic in a note to clients.

Friday’s data marks the Bank of Canada’s last look at the labour market before its next interest rate decision on April 29.

As of Friday morning, financial market odds were nearly 95 per cent in favour of a rate hold from the Bank of Canada at the end of the month, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

Hencic said the outlook for the economy “remains fraught” with the Iran war’s energy shock roiling prices and no clarity over the direction of the conflict amid hopes for a lasting ceasefire.

He said weak demand in the sluggish economy should offset some of the inflationary impact from the war, allowing the Bank of Canada to stay on the sidelines for now.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2026.