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ANALYSIS

OTTAWA — If Bank of Canada watchers were waiting for the other shoe to drop, the latest employment data came down without as much as a thud.

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Hiring eased back in June, but only marginally, following an over-the-top jump the previous month — leaving the jobless rate in a holding pattern and providing precious little direction ahead of next week’s critical policy rate decision.

The Great Canadian Recession of 2015, so widely broadcast in a week of breathless prose from some forecasters, may turn out to not exist.





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The muddled economic environment finds many forecasters — maybe most — on the cut-now side of the debate, while others are still arguing against a quick fix that might accomplish as little as the previous 25-basis-point trim six months ago that took the trendsetting level to 0.75 per cent.

Canada is now flirting with — or already hitched to — another recession. The first quarter of 2015 was a disaster, in the form of a 0.6-per cent contraction, originally blamed on the initial impact of tumbling crude prices, harsh North America weather and port disruptions on the U.S. West Coast.