Canadian business insolvencies will likely remain elevated throughout 2024, experts said, as the economy plays catch-up after historically low levels during the pandemic, the Canadian Press reported. “We did have ... so many years of artificially low filings. We've got a fair bit of catch-up to do,” said Natasha MacParland, a partner at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. The pandemic saw a historically low level of insolvency filings — which include bankruptcy and restructuring procedures — as government supports kicked in but in 2023 things started to normalize, said MacParland.

Canada’s labor market continues to run slightly hotter than expected, with another solid month of hiring buoyed by rapid population growth and signs still-high wage growth has begun to cool, the Wall Street Journal reported. Employers added 40,700 jobs last month, though that wasn’t enough to prevent the unemployment rate from ticking up 0.1 percentage point to 5.8%, Statistics Canada reported Friday. The pace of hiring was the strongest in five months and beat market expectations for the addition of a modest 20,000 jobs.

Canada’s labor market surged past expectations with the biggest job gains since September, but a rising unemployment rate and slowing wage growth still point to easing inflation pressures ahead, Bloomberg News reported. The country added 41,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate rose to 5.8%, Statistics Canada reported Friday in Ottawa. The employment figure more than doubled expectations and the jobless rate matched the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate steady for a fifth consecutive meeting, acknowledging progress on inflation while reiterating that it’s still “too early” to consider rate cuts, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers led by Governor Tiff Macklem left the benchmark overnight rate unchanged at 5% on Wednesday. The pause was expected by markets and by economists in a Bloomberg survey.

New York state lawmakers are renewing the push to overhaul the protracted and painful process of solving sovereign debt crises, Bloomberg News reported. Senator Gustavo Rivera is sponsoring amended legislation that stands to ramp up oversight on how defaulted government debt is restructured with creditors. It could also potentially limit how much investors are allowed to recoup when countries restructure their debts — a concept that’s riled up Wall Street in the past.

The mid-January deadline for businesses to qualify for partial forgiveness of pandemic loans likely played a major role in driving up business insolvencies that month, said the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Canadian Press reported. As businesses continue to face inflation, labour shortages, higher interest rates and weakened consumer spending, for many the deadline was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Simon Gaudreault, the CFIB’s chief economist and vice-president of research. “The math just doesn’t add up anymore,” he said.

Chinese investment can’t be the solution for cash-strapped Canadian miners seeking financial backing, according to Canada’s natural resources minister, Bloomberg News reported. “We need to be working to solve access to capital issues, but the answer cannot be investment from Chinese state-owned industries,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Tuesday in an interview.

Panama's economy is expected to see growth slow in 2024 to 2.5%, from 7.5% in the previous year, as a result of the closure of First Quantum Minerals' lucrative copper mine in the country, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday, Reuters reported. Gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to gradually improve over the medium term, but the mine's closure does entail the permanent loss of about 0.6% of GDP in fiscal revenues and 7.5% of exports of goods and services, the IMF said. Read more.

A small Florida hedge fund that allegedly helped Indian tech firm Think & Learn Pvt hide $533 million must reveal where the money is located or face possible sanctions from a federal judge on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in a Friday hearing dismissed an effort by the investment firm, Camshaft Capital Fund, to avoid answering questions about the cash. The missing money is at the heart of a fight between lenders owed $1.2 billion and Think & Learn, the education-tech startup founded by entrepreneur Byju Raveendran.