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OTTAWA — It’s hard to deny that Canada’s employment picture has turned “definitely positive.”

For a second month in a row, overall hiring activity soared — in many of the right places — and interrupted the seesaw trend between gains and losses that has persisted all year.

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The economy produced an unexpectedly strong 43,100 jobs in October, all in the private sector and mostly full-time positions, pushing the unemployment rate to a six-year low.

Last month’s gains — when combined with growth of 74,100 in September — produced the largest two-month increase since March and April 2012, Statistics Canada said Friday.

For much of that, we can thank a soft Canadian dollar and our shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with the United States for enabling us to tap into its recovering markets.

But there has also been as shift within Canada — most notably from the West to Central Canada, the traditional economic base that has been hard hit by a slowdown in the manufacturing sector.