Canada: Unemployment Rate rises to 9.4% in January, Net Change in Employment at -212K

• Unemployment Rate in Canada rose more than expected in January.
• USD/CAD trades in the negative territory near 1.2800 despite disappointing data.

The Unemployment Rate in Canada rose to 9.4% in January from 8.8% (revised from 8.6%) in December with the Net Change in Employment declining more than 212,000 (vs -47.5K expected), the data published by Statistics Canada revealed on Friday. This reading came in worse than the market expectation of 8.9%. 

Further details of the publication revealed that the Participation Rate declined to 64.7% from 65% and the Average Hourly Wages edged higher to 5.87% on a yearly basis.

Market reaction

The USD/CAD pair spiked to a session high of 1.2828 but quickly reversed its direction amid broad-based USD weakness. As of writing, the pair was down 0.17% on the day at 1.2803.