The news regarding Canadians finding work was good-news-bad-news-ho-hum-news in December.
Figures released Friday morning by Statistics Canada show the country's jobless rate held steady at 5.6% in December as the economy added 9,300 jobs, but about the same number of people were looking for work.
The agency added most of the jobs were part-time; as 28,300 new part-time jobs were added, 18,900 full-time jobs were lost.
The numbers were slightly lower than the gain of about 10,000 jobs that economists had been expecting for the month. The 5.6% jobless rate, meanwhile, remained at the lowest level on record.
Experts said, however, that despite the economy creating new jobs, wages aren't increasing much, as pay packets grew on average by just 1.5% last year — less than the current inflation rate.
Across the country, there were job gains in Newfoundland and Labrador, while the job market shrank in Alberta, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Everywhere else, job market held steady.
December's figure means that for 2018 as a whole, Canada's economy added 163,000 jobs, which represents 0.9% growth. That's lower than the pace of growth seen in 2017 (when the job market expanded 2.3%) and 2016 (when it grew by 1.2%).
