Cheerful news on the economic front Friday morning: Canada's economy churned out 41,000 jobs in March, or quadruple what economists were expecting.
Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey showed more people employed in Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. At the same time, employment declined in Prince Edward Island and was fairly static in the other provinces.
Alberta added almost 19,000 jobs during the month, a reversal of a recent trend, enough to drag the jobless rate down eight points to the national average again. The once-oil-rich province still, however, has fewer people employed today than it did a year ago.
Economists had been expecting the Canadian economy to add about 10,000 jobs in March. The surprise good news pushed the Canadian dollar up half a cent to 76.87 cents U.S.
The strong showing was enough to pull the unemployment rate down by 0.2 percentage points to 7.1%.
