Canada’s job market is less robust than the country’s most closely watched employment indicator suggests. Data from the payroll employment survey — a census of all paid workers in Canada — indicates the country added a mere 17,000 jobs over the six-month period ending in February. That’s a far cry from the 183,800 reported in the labor force survey, which polls households and is faster to publish results. That difference of 166,800 jobs is more than 22 times the average gap between the two surveys since 2001, and has been growing for months. During the height of the pandemic, six-month job growth in the household ... (full story)