Canadian Economy Adds 22,000 Jobs in December

The country is the first G7 nation to return to pre-recession levels of employment.

Analysts had predicted that Canada’s unemployment rate would rise slightly from 7.6 per cent to 7.7 per cent in the last month of 2010, but instead the workforce grew by a surprising 22,000 jobs and kept the unemployment rate steady. Over the course of last year, the economy created 385,000 job, which represents a 2.2-per-cent increase following a 1.1-per-cent decrease in 2009. The positive employment figures are a sign that the Canadian economy remains comparatively healthy and is on course, for the moment at least, to recover from the global recession. Experts credit the slowly recovering U.S. economy and Canadian manufacturers’ successful adaptation to the rising loonie for the job growth.