Canada’s job market is making a comeback from the declines experienced earlier in the year resulting from the third wave of Covid and the associated lockdowns. In June, the economy added 231 thousand jobs, nearly reversing the 275 thousand job losses in April and May. USD to CAD shrugged off the jobs number as they were in line with expectations and entirely concentrated in part time work. The Canadian dollar is up 0.2% this morning as the US dollar gives up some of yesterday’s strong gains. The move up in the loonie comes as stocks bounce from yesterday’s sell-off. Oil is also up and again approaching multi-year highs. Thursday’s rally in the US dollar came in response to the spread of the highly infectious delta Covid variant as well as concerns about the global economic growth. The market does not seem entirely settled about those issues and measures of risk remain elevated. As a result, it would not be entirely surprising if we see higher than usual volatility in the exchange rate today.
