After two months of job losses, the Canadian economy managed to add a small number of jobs in March. It’s a very low bar, but as with the modest uptick in GDP in January, at least employment was up rather than down. 

The addition of 14,100 jobs (+0.1%), however, was not enough to reverse the loss of 108,700 jobs over the first two months of the year or to reduce the national unemployment rate, which stayed put at 6.7%.

With the first quarterly decline experienced since the pandemic and a weak 1.4% annual increase last year, Canada’s job engine is sputtering.

Between the war in the Middle East adding to the economic uncertainty generated by U.S. trade policy and the impact of productivity-enhancing efforts such as getting major projects built not yet being felt, we expect job growth in Canada to remain sluggish this year and the unemployment rate to average roughly what it did last year (6.8%) due to a marked pullback in population growth.

A rough first quarter for employment supports our view that the Bank of Canada will remain on hold this year and wait until 2027 to raise its policy rate. This, of course, assumes the upward pressure on inflation due to the war in the Middle East is temporary and doesn’t affect longer-term inflation expectations.   

Turning to sales at restaurants and bars, January was also a record month for Alberta, with sales reaching over $1.1 billion for a year-over-year increase of 9.5%.

January’s sales build on a strong performance last year that saw annual revenue rise by 5.9%.

The rise in the number of international visitors helps explain the increase in restaurant and bar sales, but it also suggests visitors from other parts of Canada and, of course, Albertans themselves are continuing to support the sector by eating out/ordering in.

As we’ve stressed before, while rising sales are a positive trend for the sector, there has also been upward pressure on operating costs. Unfortunately, this  could get worse, with the Iran war already increasing fuel prices and potentially causing food costs to rise even higher (thanks in part to spiking fertilizer prices).

*The data in today’s Twenty-Four have been adjusted for regular seasonal variation.

In Alberta, employment growth in March was also modest at +0.2% (6,400). A larger number of people entering the labour force pushed the unemployment rate up from 6.3% in February to 6.5% in March.

Looking over a longer time frame, the trend has been more favourable in Alberta. On a quarterly basis, Alberta performed better than the country as a whole, adding 20,000 jobs for a quarter-over-quarter growth rate of 0.8% compared to -0.2% nationally. Compared to the same month last year, Alberta employment was up 4.0% in March vs. a 0.4% national increase.

As expected, we continue to see a rebalancing in Alberta’s labour market, with the rate of job growth outpacing the rate of population growth over the last year. This has resulted in a lower unemployment rate than a year ago (7.2% in March 2025) and well below the cyclical peak of 8.2% last August. Alberta has been below the national unemployment rate for five months in a row, the longest streak since 2015.

Given Alberta's status as the country’s largest oil producer, plus ongoing population growth and resilient activity across a broad range of sectors, we expect employment growth to continue to outpace the national average this year. If recent trends hold, we see some upside to our 2026 employment forecast, though the unemployment rate is tracking close to our call.

Key Statistics

Canada

• Employment Change: 14,100 (0.1%)
• Unemployment Rate: 6.7% (6.7% in February)
• Annual Growth: 0.4% year-over-year employment growth

Alberta

• Employment Change: 6,400
• Unemployment Rate: 6.5% (6.3% in February)
• Annual Growth: 4.0%  year-over-year employment growth

Calgary (3-month moving average)

• Unemployment Rate: 6.7% (6.6% in February).
• Trend: Employment growth in Calgary continues to be robust with jobs added in January, February and March with a year-over-year growth rate of 4.2% in March.

Edmonton (3-month moving average)

• Unemployment Rate: 6.5% (6.8% in February).
• Trend: With consecutive job gains so far this year, employment in Edmonton was up by 5.2% in March compared to the same month last year. 

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

Answer to the previous trivia question: Alberta recorded its largest quarterly gain from interprovincial migration in the third quarter of 1981 at 20,706.

Today’s trivia question: In what year did John Herschel create the first scatter plot?