• Unemployment rate: 6.7% vs 6.6% expected

• Prior 6.5%

• Full-time employment change: -108.4K vs +44.9k last month

• Part-time employment change: +24.5K vs -69.7K last month

• Participation rate: 64.9% vs 65.0% last month

• Average hourly wages (permanent, YoY): 4.2% vs 3.3% last month

• Full report here

This is an awful jobs report. The Canadian dollar is selling off across the board.

StatCan notes that “employment declines in February were recorded in services-producing industries (-56,000; -0.3%) and goods-producing industries (-28,000; -0.7%). The largest declines were in wholesale and retail trade (-18,000; -0.6%), and ‘other services’ such as personal and repair services (-14,000; -1.8%).”

In February, the number of people working full-time declined by 108,000 (-0.6%), offsetting growth recorded over the previous two months. At the same time, there was little variation in the number of people working part-time in February. On a year-over-year basis, there was little change in the number of people working full-time or part-time.

Despite the bleak data, traders are still pricing a rate hike from the BoC by year-end as elevated oil prices continue to drive inflation expectations.