Leading Indicators --
Canada’s index of leading economic indicators unexpectedly fell in September, the first decline since April 2009, led by housing and manufacturing.
The index dropped 0.1% after a revised gain of 0.6% in August, Ottawa-based Statistics Canada said today. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News said the index would rise 0.2%, based on the median of eight estimates. The index’s average monthly increase over the past decade is 0.3%.
New orders for durable-goods manufacturers fell 1.9% from the previous month, and the average factory workweek fell by 0.3% to 36.6 hours. Statistics Canada’s measure of housing starts and existing home sales fell 3.2%.
The Bank of Canada yesterday cut its third-quarter economic growth forecast to 1.6% from 2.8% and said growth will slow to 2.3% next year after the government slows stimulus spending. The central bank kept its key lending rate at 1 percent two days ago and said monetary policy tightening would be “carefully considered.”
Five of the index’s 10 components decreased in September. Retail sales of furniture and appliances fell 0.7%, and sales of other durable goods rose 0.9%.
Employment Insurance --
There were 671,210 people receiving regular employment insurance benefits in August, essentially unchanged from July, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
The number of beneficiaries for the month were down 0.1 per cent, on a seasonally adjusted basis, from July and 12.6 per cent lower from a year earlier.
Since peaking in June 2009, the number has fallen by 158,100. This decline has offset almost half of the gain of 329,000 seen during the economic downturn of 2008-09.
The number of beneficiaries has fallen closers to levels seen in March, after some slight elevation during second quarter of 2010.
Despite little change in the overall number of EI beneficiaries, the number of initial claims were up 8,100 from the previous month to 258,700 in August.
Since March, there has been an average rise of 5,700 in monthly initial jobless claims, Statistics Canada said.
