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“Given what’s going on in the rest of the world — the many dark clouds that have rumbled in recently — it’s encouraging to see that North America employment held up so very well in September.”

Canada withstood the worst of the recession, which for us lasted for only three quarters between 2008-09, and avoided a financial meltdown. The U.S., the largest growth engine in the world, took a bigger and longer hit on both counts, but is again picking up momentum.

Now, there are new worries about Europe’s economic health and a growth slowdown in China, the No. 2 economy, along with increased geopolitical concerns in other parts of the globe.

So far, Canada is showing “solid” growth, according to the most recent International Monetary Fund report, which put this country’s expansion at 2.4% in 2015 — mirroring the Bank of Canada’s latest outlook. The IMF sees the U.S. economy accelerating by 3.1% next year.

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“For Canada, if the U.S. is doing better, that can overcome a lot of ills elsewhere in the world. And that really is our biggest hope at this point,” Mr. Porter said.

“The U.S. is less dependent on the rest of the world than many other major economies. It really can stand as an island,” he said. “This is gong to be a test over the next year. But I believe the U.S. can maintain healthy growth even when we’ve got very choppy waters in the rest of the world.”

Until now, Canada has been playing catch-up with U.S. job creation run.

Friday’s employment report from Statistics Canada may set a faster and steadier pace of hiring in the coming months — and could also silence some of the criticism that has been aimed at the federal data agency over the unpredictability of its job numbers. As well, it had to re-issue its July employment report after “human error” resulted in an erroneous reading of the labour force.