Canada's Ivey Business Survey dips in March. Employment gains by 14,600. | CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

April 4, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Canada's Ivey Business Survey dips in March. Employment gains by 14,600.

The Ivey Purchasing Managers Index and the Canadian employment changes for the month of March were released out of Canada today. The Ivey Index, which surveys monthly changes in purchasing activity of selected business managers, fell in March to a score of 59.0. March's score was down from 62.0 in February and below the score of 67.3 in March of 2007. Economic forecasts had expected the Ivey Index score to be 62.5 for March. A score above 50 in the index indicates an increase in activity, a score below 50 indicates a decrease while a score of 50 is considered to mean activity had remained flat. The Ivey employment index for March registered 53.9 which increased from 53.6 in February. The prices index fell to 68.7 from 74.3 in February while the inventories index registered a 50.7 score and the supplier deliveries index registered a 43.3 score for March.

Canadian employment gains.

Canadian employment increased in March by 14,600 workers according to Statistics Canada. Canadian employment also hit a record high participation rate of 68 percent. Economic forecasts had expected Canadian employment to increase by 20,000 workers for the month. Despite the growth in jobs, the unemployment rate increased from 5.8 percent to 6.0 percent due to a "surge of entrants into the labour market", according to the report. Full time employment posted a loss of over 19,000 jobs but this was made up for by a strong increase in part time employment which increased by 34,200 jobs in March. The provinces of Alberta and British Columbia led the way in job growth for the month as their employment rates reached 64.0 percent and 74.7 percent, respectively.

Tags: canada, ivey purchasing managers index, canadian employment, unemployment rate, statistics canada

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