Unemployment rate tumbles to 5.7% to reach lowest mark in more than 40 years
OTTAWA — Job creation in 2017 reached a pace not seen in a calendar year since 2002, reduced the unemployment rate to its lowest mark in more than 40 years — and surely came as a profound relief to Canada’s embattled federal finance minister.
Statistics Canada’s job numbers Friday offered a year-end look at a healthy 2017 performance. The surprisingly strong run was capped off by a December report that led some forecasters to cement, or even move up, their predictions that the Bank of Canada would raise its benchmark interest rate, possibly as early as this month.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau, whose new year’s resolutions likely include efforts to change the channel following a tumultuous political year he’d probably prefer to forget, also made a point of highlighting the jobs data.
In the second half of the year, Morneau was battered by controversy over a highly contentious tax-reform plan, stinging ethical questions over how he arranged his personal assets upon entering cabinet and conflict-of-interest allegations.