Canada lost about 4,300 jobs in December, a small enough figure for Statistics Canada to describe the job market as "virtually unchanged."
The unemployment rate stayed steady at 6.6%, the agency said Friday.
Despite the well-publicized decline in oil prices, Alberta led in terms of job growth, and actually added almost 6,000 new jobs during the month. Ontario, by way of contrast, shed 3,500 jobs.
Quebec lost 6,700 jobs.
All in all, Canada actually added 54,000 full-time jobs last month, offset by a loss of more than 58,000 positions.
The December numbers mean Canada added a total of 186,000 jobs in 2014 as a whole, most of which came in the second half of the year.
