Canada

Canadian employers continue to report record levels of job vacancies, pointing to a drum-tight labor market that’s likely to keep the central bank on an aggressive hiking path, Bloomberg News reported. Unfilled positions rose by 32,500 in June to 1.03 million, Statistics Canada reported Thursday. It marks the fourth straight month of vacancies near or above the 1 million threshold. The job vacancy rate -- the number of unfilled jobs as a share of all positions -- was 5.9% in June, matching a record high.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would be willing to consider easing the regulatory burden on new gas export facilities to Europe, while indicating the business case for investments may be a difficult one, Bloomberg News reported. Speaking to reporters in Montreal at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Trudeau said the challenge is that any new liquefied natural gas terminal on Canada’s eastern shore would be far from country’s western gas fields.

Bank of Nova Scotia’s years-long turnaround of its Latin America-focused international unit faced a setback last quarter as the division’s lending margins contracted and non-interest revenue slipped, Bloomberg News reported. The unit’s total revenue came in at C$2.42 billion ($1.86 billion) in the fiscal third quarter, the Toronto-based bank said in a statement Tuesday. While that’s up 2.4% from a year earlier, it trailed analysts’ C$2.54 billion average estimate. Overall profit also missed expectations.

The Bank of Canada has more work to do in taming stubborn price pressures despite signs headline inflation may have peaked, Governor Tiff Macklem said, Bloomberg News reported. Macklem delivered the hawkish message in a newspaper opinion piece Tuesday afternoon, hours after Statistics Canada reported that consumer price gains slowed to a 7.6% yearly pace in July on a steep drop in gasoline prices.

Canada's second-largest pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is exploring legal options over bankrupt crypto lending firm Celsius and will no longer invest in crypto firms, it said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. CDPQ's statement came as the fund recovers from its failed investment in New Jersey-based Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in July less than a year after it received an investment of $150 million from the fund.

Canadian mortgage investment corporations (MICs), alternative lenders that offer riskier home loans and small construction financing, are struggling to attract investors, firms and analysts said, which could increase pressure on them and spur consolidation in the sector, Reuters reported. These alternative lenders, which make up about 1.5% of Canada's mortgage market, drew investors looking for high returns as interest rates hit rock bottom in recent years. But with rates rising rapidly under a Bank of Canada tightening cycle this year, investors have sought higher-yielding, safer assets.

Consumer price inflation cooled as gasoline prices fell by the most since the start of the pandemic, though underlying price pressures will likely push the Bank of Canada to continue delivering aggressive rate hikes, Bloomberg News reported. The consumer price index rose 7.6% in July from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday in Ottawa. The inflation gauge increased 0.1% from a month earlier, the seventh straight increase. Both numbers matched the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

A B.C. couple who manipulated stock at the expense of people’s retirement savings will still need to repay the defrauded investors, regardless of any possible future bankruptcy proceedings, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled, BIV.com reported. Thalbinder Singh Poonian and Shailu Poonian are permanently barred from working in the capital markets after a British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) panel ruled in 2014 they misappropriated roughly $7 million from investors for their own gain.

Canadian employment unexpectedly fell for a second straight month in July as workers dropped out of the labor force, Bloomberg News reported. The country shed 30,600 jobs last month, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa, a surprise negative reading compared to the 15,000 gain anticipated by economists. Still, the unemployment rate held at a record low 4.9% as the labor force shrank by a similar amount. The employment drop last month adds to a loss of 43,200 jobs in June, marking a sudden stop to Canada’s yearlong labor market boom.