Canada's labor market added a net 90,400 jobs in April and the employment rate remained unchanged at 6.1 per cent, Statistics Canada said on Friday.
The increase exceeded analysts' expectations. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast an addition of 18,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate rising to 6.2 percent.
The job increase was driven by an increase in part-time jobs, the federal data agency reported, with 50,000 part-time jobs added in April.
Growth in average hourly wages slowed slightly, rising 4.7 percent year-on-year in April, compared to an annual growth rate of 5.1 percent in March.
"Overall, April's labor market data was clearly better than expected, although the underlying trend is looser conditions with the unemployment rate still higher than at the start of the year and wage pressures beginning to ease," CIBC economist Andrew Grantham wrote in a note. research on Friday.
Canada's labor market stalled in March, with the loss of 2,200 jobs and the unemployment rate rising to 6.1 percent.
