Markets are strong this morning with oil up 6.3 to $39.60.
Canadian Western Bank is up 4.4%.
Statistics Canada came out with a very positive jobs report for March.
This is welcome news. But we should be a bit cautious given that these figures are based on a household survey and are inherently subject to the error of statistical noise from month to month. On a national basis the employment level is subject to a sampling error of plus or minus 30,000 jobs two months out of three and to a larger error than that the other one third of the time. That is a pretty big error that is often ignored in media reports that often put a lot of weight on an increase of say 20,000 jobs.
I suspect that Alberta’s unemployment rate falling from 7.9% in February to 7.1% in has to be to some degree the result of statistical noise. Nevertheless, the report is a positive indicator for the economy in Canada and particularly for Alberta.