Employers created some 91,000 positions in December, the third increase in four months, Statistics Canada reported. The employment rate, a broad indicator of economic health that measures the percentage of the total working-age population that has a job, rose to 60.8 per cent, the first increase since January 2023. Average hourly wages increased 3.8 per cent year-over-year, down from 4.1 per cent growth in November. (The Logic)

Talking point: There were 413,000 more people working in December than a year earlier, a two per cent increase that was essentially the same as the annual gain in 2023 and the average between 2017 and 2019. But most of it was done by governments adding teachers and health-care workers; private sector employment was little changed in December, although self-employment increased for the first time since February. Wage growth is slowing, but from levels that the Bank of Canada worried were inflationary. Bottom line: the economy bent under the strain of higher interest rates last year, but it didn’t break.