Canadian Employment dips, Trade Surplus gains. China's Trade Surplus cools in Dec.

January 11, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Economic news out of Canada was released today by Statistics Canada. Canadian employment dipped by 19,000 workers in the month of December ending a string of seven straight months of employment increases. Despite the decline for December, the Canadian unemployment rate was unmoved at 5.9 percent. Canadian employment gained 370,000 jobs and was up 2.2 percent for the year of 2007, a slight increase over 2006 which saw a 2.1 percent increase. The positive numbers for 2007 marked the fifteenth straight year that there has been growing employment in Canada.

Also on the Canadian economic front, Canada's international trade balance registered a trade surplus in November for the second month in a row according to data from Statistics Canada. Canada had a trade surplus of C$3.7 billion in November after a surplus of C$3.1 billion in October. Boosting the surplus was a 3.1 percent rise in merchandise exports as Canada exported C$37.9 billion worth of merchandise in November. Merchandise exports had declined for the three months prior.

China Trade Surplus hits record high for year.

China's trade surplus cooled a bit in the last couple months but hit a record surplus for the year of 2007 according to data released today by the General Administration of Customs in China. December totaled a $22.69 billion(USD) surplus for China down 14.2 percent from November's $26.3 billion. China posted an all-time high $27 billion trade surplus in October. China's yearly surplus was a record $262.2 billion, up approximately 48 percent from 2006 which saw a $177.47 billion surplus.

Tags: Canada Employment, Canada Trade Balance, China Trade Balance-- Blog index