Canadian building permits jumped 15.3% in September, rebounding from a decline in August, led by single-family houses and offices. The total value of permits issued by municipalities increased to $6.61 billion, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. Economists predicted a 2.5% advance based on the median of 15 responses to a Bloomberg News survey.
Canada has recovered all the jobs lost during a recession that ended last year, and five-year fixed mortgage rates are close to the lowest in half a century. Municipalities are facing a March 31 deadline to complete projects receiving federal government stimulus funding.
Permits for non-residential construction rose 26.7% to $2.75 billion in September after dropping 24.2% in August. Commercial projects rose 37.8% on increased office space in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, and institutional buildings rose 23.4%on medical and religious projects. Residential permits increased 8.3% to $3.86 billion, Statistics Canada said. Single-family permits rose 9.5% to $2.23 billion after five previous declines and multiple-unit structures advanced 6.7% to $1.63 billion.
The total value of building permits for September was 23.9% higher than the year-ago month, the report said. Statistics Canada also revised its estimate for the August decline in building permits to 9.5% from the originally reported 9.2% drop.
Canada's unemployment rate took a slight but welcome dip last month as the economy continued to show limited signs of improvement.
October's unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a point to 7.9 per cent last month, breaking the 8 per cent mark for the first time since last June.
The fractional dip came amid generally disappointing details released by Statistics Canada on Thursday that showed that only 3,000 new jobs were created in October.
The number was far fewer than the still-meager 15,000 spots economists had expected to see.
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