After a tepid April jobs report, economists are expecting to see stronger employment gains for May when the latest labour force survey results are released later this morning by Statistics Canada.

The consensus forecast is that employment rose by 11,300 in May and the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.6 per cent, as more people entered the job market.

CIBC Capital Markets is expecting job growth for last month to come in at 17,000, following April's small jobs gain of only 3,200.

"Call it a modest bounce back after the prior month's lacklustre reading on employment growth," CIBC Capital Markets economist Nick Exarhos said in a recent commentary.

"We're also looking for the composition of job growth to be of higher quality, with more full-time and paid work being registered," Exarhos said.

CIBC expects the national jobless rate will hold steady at 6.5 per cent, thanks to an expected rise in the number of people in the labour force.

"That's still low on a historical basis, and even a modest slowdown in job growth ahead should keep Canada on track to close labour market slack sometime in the coming quarters," Exarhos said.

Economist Benjamin Reitzes of BMO Capital Markets said they're looking for the May job report to show a "decent" increase of 15,000​ positions.

Higher unemployment

"After a rocking first quarter, it's tough to deny that the Canadian economy is looking much healthier," Reitzes said. Employment has been solid since last August, though momentum has slowed a bit over the past few months.

BMO expects that more people being drawn into the labour market will push the national unemployment rate to 6.6 per cent.

National Bank's forecast is more downbeat compared to the outlook of other economists.

Citing the fact that the Canadian economy has added roughly 250,000 jobs from the third quarter of 2016 through the first quarter of this year, which National said was the best three-quarter performance since 2010, the bank said "such gains are arguably unsustainable."

"Consequently, we're expecting employment to have increased only [5,000] in May, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent." National said.