Canada Jobless Rate Hits 3-Year High to 7.3 Percent
Montreal — Canada’s unemployment rate posted a surprise increase last month as the nation continues to struggle with the impact of lower oil prices. The unemployment rate climbed to 7.3 percent in February, the highest since March 2013, following a 7.2 percent rate a month earlier and up from as low 6.6 percent last year, Statistics Canada said Friday from Ottawa. Employers eliminated a net 2,300 jobs, including more than 50,000...
Canada’s Trudeau Pushes Keynesian Stimulus
Ottawa — Fiscal stimulus may be what the doctor ordered for the world economy, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have a tough time persuading his peers to swallow the medicine. Canada’s new Liberal government is expected to post a shortfall of about $22.5 billion in its debut budget, representing one of biggest expansionary swings in fiscal policy in the nation’s history. It’s the sort of activism increasingly touted within...
Google Raids Canada’s Tech Talent
With a tech industry one-third the size of California’s, Canada has confounded expectations by becoming a leader in the booming market for artificial intelligence. Pioneering technologies developed in Canadian labs can be found in Facebook’s facial recognition algorithms, Google’s Photos app, smartphone voice recognition and even Japanese robots. Now Canada risks losing its AI edge to Silicon Valley. Several leading Canadian...
Corporate Canada Lags in Women Leaders
Toronto — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just made 50 percent of his Cabinet women. Female management in the country’s corporations is well below that. Women hold an average 12 percent of executive positions and 14 percent of board seats according to available data on 242 companies on the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index, Canada’s main equity index. They hold 25 percent of management positions and only seven...
Robots Add to Job, Price Slump in Canada Oil
Calgary — Truck driver Craig Huzulak is unemployed after losing his job four times since December — the new normal in a Canadian oil patch still reeling from a downturn. Huzulak, 49, was working at a mine last year near Fort McMurray, Alberta, when crude prices plunged and work dried up. He lost two more positions in the following months and then had a job offer yanked at the end of June before he could even start. In addition to the...
