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Canada’s unemployment rate plunged to the lowest in more than 40 years, suddenly raising the oddsof a Bank of Canada rate hike this month.

The jobless rate fell to 5.7 per cent in December, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa, the lowest in the current data series that begins in 1976. The number of jobs rose by 78,600, beating expectations and bringing the full-year employment gain to 422,500. That’s the best annual increase since 2002.

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The economy showed unexpected resiliency as the year came to an end, with the figures indicating rapidly diminishing slack in the labor market that may quicken the expected pace of interest-rate increases by the Bank of Canada. Since September, Canada added 193,400 jobs — the biggest three-month gain since at least 1976.

“The latest data in hand support a rate hike” in January, said Bill Adams, senior international economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “Broad-based growth is still the dominant theme.”