April’s surprising job numbers have analysts rethinking when interest rate cuts might roll in. Canada’s job market came back swinging in April, smashing expectations by adding over 90,000 jobs when experts were only betting on around 20,000. But with the job market looking strong, the Bank of Canada doesn’t want to jump the gun on rate cuts because that could add more heat to the economic fire. Before these job numbers hit, analysts were eyeing June for potential rate cuts from the BoC, but now that assumption is losing steam. When jobs are booming, it’s a sign of a healthy economy — companies are doing well, and that usually means more growth and maybe even higher prices on stuff (in other words, things that drive up inflation). However, it’s up in the air how the central bank consider job numbers in their rate cut decision, as a lot of the jobs added were part-time jobs, and the unemployment rate stayed at 6.1% because of high population growth.
