Macklem Q&A: Employment is not negative but is well below population growth

• Businesses are hiring much more slowly than people are entering the work force
• Youth unemployment has gone up a lot
• We have very high rates of immigration
• If we were to see a rise in unemployment, that would be a concern
• It’s reasonable to expect further rate cuts
• We want to see growth pickup as we get closer to the neutral rate
• We want to see growth pickup and that’s something that’s going to factor into our monetary policy decisions
• We expect wage growth to come into line with productivity. If that doesn’t happen, it could make inflation sticky
• If upside surprises materialize, we could slow the pace of normalization
• Monthly GDP in particular and jobs have been on the weak side and that’s a downside risk
• If downside risks materialize, it could be appropriate to take a bigger step
• There is some downside risk to our Q3 estimate

There was something of an effort here to put 50 bps on the table but maybe I’m reading too much into it. USD/CAD has perked up during his comments but only by a handful of pips.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.