-- Canada will update job market conditions for April in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on Friday, said Scotiabank.
The LFS is a household survey, like the United States version that accompanies nonfarm payrolls, noted the bank.
Household surveys have higher "noise" factors, stated Scotiabank. The 95% confidence band for the change in Canadian employment is about more or less 57,000, which would be about half a million in the context of the U.S. labor market for reference purposes.
The bank estimates no change in jobs during April and a flat unemployment rate of 6.7%. Key for the unemployment rate is when the survey starts showing a contracting population and a contracting labor force as a reflection of tighter immigration population.
That's especially applied to the temporary category that includes international students, temporary foreign workers and asylum seekers. The LFS applies a 12-month moving average to the size of the temporary category and, as such, its measures lag actual population changes. The time for LFS to catch up and begin showing a declining population is approaching, pointed out the bank.
Statistics Canada doesn't revise jobs on a monthly basis as the U.S. does. The problem this time is a bit of a "quirky" argument, added Scotiabank. The seasonal adjustment factor is expected to remain lower than historically, as has been the pattern for like months of April in recent years, while there is a very high bar for the seasonally unadjusted change in employment to be big enough to keep the change in jobs in the black.
What's interesting is that the Bank of Canada's figures for wage growth that control for compositional shifts surged last month, according to its fresh estimates, said Scotiabank. There is little difference compared with surging wage growth that doesn't control for compositional changes.
Canada is still very much in an upward wage spiral, including the effects of expiring collective bargaining agreements struck three to four years ago that are cementing years of wage gains above the BoC's 2% inflation target going forward.