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Despite the good news, unemployment ticked up slightly to 6.9 per cent in December as more Canadians entered the labour force.

Some market watchers also cautioned against declaring December’s “loot bag” the start of a trend.

Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said the “fly in the ointment” of the largely positive December report is that total hours worked declined by 0.8 per cent from the previous month.

“So we had more people working in full time jobs, but the average employee reported a shorter work week in terms of their own hours — Go figure,” he said.

What’s more, while the December job and trade data released Friday were encouraging, Shenfeld stressed the importance of looking at 2016 as a whole as a more reliable guide to the state of Canada’s economy.

“Don’t miss seeing the forest by focusing on a single tree. Looking back at the past 12 months… we’ve had only a 0.4 per cent rise in full time jobs, against a 4.5 per cent rise in part time work,” he said.

“The result is that total hours worked in December 2016 were essentially unchanged” from a year earlier.

Derek Burleton, deputy chief economist at TD, also noted that full-time employment remained “a weak spot” when the whole of 2016 was considered.

“The reversal we saw is welcome but still leaves part time as the major driver of job growth in 2016,” he told the Financial Post.