Some good economic news heading into the holidays. The job market continued to show more signs of life in the final innings of 2025.

Employment rose 54,000 in Canada last month, with more than half of those gains coming from Alberta.

Alberta employment spiked by 29,000. This was large enough to put a significant dent in the unemployment rate, which dropped from 7.8% to 6.5% - the lowest level since March 2024. A lower participation rate helped, but it was primarily jobs driven.

One month doesn’t make a trend, and two months doesn’t either. But it’s hard to dismiss the strong readings over the last three months. Employment growth in Alberta has exceeded 10K/month in the last three months, more than reversing a summer of job losses. The recent uptick, moreover, has been driven by private sector payrolls, a marked turnaround from the public sector driven growth earlier in the year.

Looking at the trend, year-over year job growth in Alberta has been led by service industries, with the goods sector lagging. That would be our only flag about the sustainability of job gains.  Certain goods-producing industries, like manufacturing and oil and gas, are still holding below year-ago levels.

A few final thoughts on this Santa Claus report:

• This report, when combined with the positive Q3 GDP surprise, pretty much makes a BofC rate hold a lock next week.
• You can quibble about the Alberta details - that the job gains were concentrated in certain service industries - but the reality is that the headline numbers have exceeded expectations.  
• The economy is on stronger footing than we had expected, and far stronger than pretty much anyone expected when President Trump launched the trade war. 
• The Alberta labour market story has been more jobs, but even more people - keeping the unemployment rate elevated. That dynamic has changed, and Alberta finally converged to the national average last month. This is a positive development.  
• Before we get too carried away, though, a healthy dose of caution is warranted. A recent Bank of Canada survey points to weak hiring intentions (including in the Prairie region).  Trade uncertainty remains elevated with no long-term U.S. trade deal in sight. Absent a trade deal or actual shovels in the ground (or final investment decision) on new major projects, we still see businesses in a cautious hiring stance and we are reluctant to swing our forecast too much next year. We’re also looking to see more job gains come from goods industries like oil and gas and manufacturing, which tend to anchor broader gains in the province. More broadly, we’re also looking to see if last month’s uptick in private sector hiring holds, as previous gains were more public sector driven. 
• That said, these numbers are too strong to ignore, and we will be upgrading our employment  forecast for next year.  We’ll be doing some fine tuning over the weekend to build in these numbers. Stay tuned.

Digging into the details

Canada

• Employment: Increased by 54,000 jobs (+0.3%) in November, driven by gains in part-time work with full-time positions down by 9,400. 
• Unemployment Rate: Fell by 0.4 percentage points to 6.5%. This marks a notable decline after the rate had trended upward through most of 2025, peaking at 7.1% in August and September.

Alberta

• Employment: Saw a significant increase of 29,000 (+1.1%) in November, driven by full-time positions (+24.8K). This is the second substantial monthly gain for the province in the last three months, building off a 10,300 rise in October and 42,500 gain in September.  
• On a year-over-year basis, employment in Alberta was up significantly by 105,000 (+4.2%), leading all provinces and the national gain of 1.5%. Annual employment growth outside Alberta was 1.1%. 
• Unemployment Rate: Dropped sharply by 1.3 percentage points to 6.5%. This is the lowest rate for the province since March 2024, aided by a lower participation rate and stronger job growth. 
• The unemployment rate also fell in Calgary (-0.6 percentage points to 7.3%) and Edmonton (-0.9 points to 7.7%). The Calgary and Edmonton numbers are reported on a 3-month moving average. 

The trivia section will be in The Seven coming out later today.