B.C.’s winter might be miserable but February job numbers on the West Coast have some spring to their step.

The province led all of Canada in job growth last month, adding 19,400 jobs, according to data released Friday (March 10) from Statistics Canada.

Overall, growth across the country was better than expected.

Economists polled by Reuters expected the nation’s unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 6.8%, adding 2,500 jobs.

Instead, Canada added 15,300 jobs in February, helping the jobless rate fall two notches to 6.6% (B.C.’s big gains were offset by losses in provinces such as Quebec, which lost 11,100 jobs).

“Wow. Another month of jobs data, and another strong print that confounded market expectations,” Brian DePratto, senior economist at TD Economics, wrote in a note to investors.

"If there is a fly in the ointment, it has to be the ongoing declines in hours worked. This suggests that even with strong gains in full-time work, the jobs being created may be at the lower end of the hours scale – perhaps pointing to a change in the quality of work on offer"

Derek Holt, head of Capital Markets Economics at Scotiabank, was skeptical of some of Statistics Canada's data.

While the country added 105,100 full-time jobs, that came with the loss of 89,800 part-time jobs.

“That’s the biggest full-time gain since May 2006 and the biggest part-time drop on record back to 1976 when the Labour Force Survey began,” Holt said in an investors’ note.

“I find this difficult to believe in terms of the details and would knock the quality of the print accordingly.”

torton@biv.com

@reporton