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After years of languishing on the employment front, Montreal is finding itself suddenly, and with little fanfare, in the midst of a job boom.

Long a leader in the unemployment rankings compared to other major Canadian metropolises (“Champion of Unemployment” boomed one headline last spring when the city’s jobless rate hit 11 per cent), the tide turned suddenly last year. Between December 2015 and December 2016, the number of people employed on the island of Montreal increased by 70,000, Statistics Canada reported, with the vast majority of them — 57,000 — working full time. The city’s unemployment rate dropped from 10.3 per cent to 7.3 per cent over that interval, the lowest tally seen since 1987, when Stats Canada started recording such figures. A record 1.03 million people were employed in Montreal in December, the city’s economic development department reported.

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A stronger U.S. economy and weak Canadian dollar that spurred manufacturing and tourism are among the chief causes, along with numerous public sector construction projects and more stable provincial financial outlook now that Quebec is reporting surpluses, as opposed to deficits. Projections are good for the near future, with one possible caveat: newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump, whose protectionist policies could hurt exports, if implemented, experts say.