Canada: Focus on labour force survey this week – NBF

Analysts at National Bank Financial suggest that in Canada, the release of October December’s labour force survey will draw a lot of attention as it comes on the heels of an abysmal print the prior month (-71K, the worst monthly drop since the recession).

Key Quotes

“As November’s result reflected what are likely to be temporary factors – abnormally cold weather for instance – we expect job creation to have resumed in the final month of the year; we’re calling for a +20K figure. That gain would push the total number of jobs created in 2019 to 305K, the second-best performance in the last 7 years.”

“We’ll also get data on November’s merchandise trade balance. Commodity prices rose during the month, a development which, in normal times, should have resulted in an increase in nominal exports. Unfortunately, this backwind is likely to have been more than offset by a drop in export volumes, the latter caused by the CN strike. As a result, we expect the trade deficit to have widened to around C$2.0 billion in the month.”

“Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz will give a speech in Vancouver on Thursday.”