Canada's economy grew by 0.1 per cent in August — the third consecutive monthly gain following five straight months of shrinking — as the economy continued to pull out of the mild recession that began at the start of the year.

Manufacturing, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction and retail trade all expanded, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

The data agency reported that GDP expanded by 0.1 per cent in August, following growth of 0.3 per cent in July and 0.4 per cent in June. Prior to that, the economy had contracted during every month of 2015.

On an annualized basis, Canada's economy expanded at a 0.9 per cent pace between August 2014 and this past August.

Both the monthly and the annualized figure were in line with what economists had been expecting.

'Muted' growth

"Though growth is muted, there is fairly broad breadth to the gains with only two sectors meaningfully dragging on growth," Scotiabank said, singling out finance and insurance and wholesale trade for much of the weakness.

Indeed, not all sectors of the economy expanded in August. In addition to the ones Scotiabank took note of, the arts, entertainment and recreation sector declined, as did the information technology, accommodation and food services, and public administration sectors.