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Friday’s report showed a “considerably stronger than expected headline job gain but with so much volatility across the components that it makes it too difficult to read from a quality standpoint,” said Derek Holt, vice-president of Scotiabank Economics.

“Bright spots were construction and manufacturing, but a huge drop in trade and resource employment probably reflects survey quality issues in my opinion on the wildfires.”

Job increases totalled 22,000 in both Ontario and Quebec. But for Quebec, that marked the first increase in hiring since July 2015, Statistics Canada said, and cut the unemployment rate to 7.1 per cent, down 0.4 points from the April reading. Gains in Ontario also helped pull the unemployment rate down by 0.4 points, taking the rate to 6.6 per cent.

The biggest declines were in Alberta, where job losses amounted to about 24,000, which pushed the unemployment rate up 0.6 points to 7.8 per cent.

“These declines coincided with the wildfires in northern Alberta, which affected business operations in a number of industries, including oil and gas extraction,” the federal agency said.

However, the survey period for May coincided with the evacuation of residents in Fort McMurray due to wildfires. As a result, Statistics Canada estimated the employment for the town based on responses from “similar respondents from surrounding areas.”

Meanwhile, employment also fell in Nova Scotia, by 3,600, although the jobless rate remained at 7.8 per cent.

“A lot of the good news, like the full-time job gains and the jobless rate decline, are offset by the not-so-good news, like private-sector job declines and a dip in the part-time growth,” said BMO’s Kavcic.

“So, you add it all up and it really looks like a wash. And then, plus, you have some special factors like the wildfire impact and probably some census hiring in there too that might have boosted the overall total.”

Financial Post

gisfeld@nationalpost.com

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