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The trend is similar in other industries, if not quite as depressing. Overall, average hourly wages increased two per cent in December from a year earlier, lifting the five-month trend to about 2.2 per cent. So, after several years of good-to-great aggregate employment growth, wages are only keeping pace with inflation. That’s as odd as it is disappointing.

Before this year, the jobless rate rarely fell below six per cent. Now it’s the ceiling. The unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent in November and December, the lowest in data that dates to 1976, and it has brushed six per cent only twice since November 2017.

With hiring at levels that economists associate with full employment, you’d expect stronger upward pressure on salaries. But for whatever reason, that’s not happening. The mystery should be enough to persuade the Bank of Canada to take an extended pause on its slow march to higher interest rates. The central bank’s main concern at the moment is staying ahead of inflation, and prices appear to be contained. Steady hiring will keep the economy moving forward, but until more of us get decent raises, there is little reason to fear a sharp increase in demand.

“While many measures would suggest that we have a tight labour market, the signal from wages says otherwise,” Brian DePratto, an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank,wrotein a research note Jan. 4. “Without this precondition, it is difficult to see much in the way of fundamental upward pressure on Canadian inflation.”