Economic Indicators (Source: Scotiabank)
Uncertainty Is Hurting American Jobs More Than Canadian Jobs
Dec 5, 2025
A stunningly resilient Canadian job market gives the Canadian side more cause to be confident at the negotiating table with the Trump administration. Markets reacted to the latest reading by driving short-term yields massively higher (2s +17bps) and with a BoC hike now priced for next September/October in keeping with our +50bps call for 2026H2.
Another 54k jobs were created last month. Some details are in chart 1. The string of three strong gains in a row totals about 181,000 jobs created in just three months. At an annualized pace we’re talking about 725k which this country has only seen in two other years since the inception of the Labour Force Survey in the 1970s —2021 and 2022 coming out of the pandemic which was recovering from the nearly million jobs lost.
If protectionism is benefiting the US, then someone forgot to tell employers (chart 2). Canadian jobs have been outperforming US jobs throughout the past couple of years during which uncertainty began to rise into the Presidential election and during the first year of Trump’s term in office. US jobs numbers are held back by the government shutdown, but even when we get ....     More >>

Featured Insights (Source: RBC Financial Group)
Tracking the impact of U.S. tariffs on five targeted Canadian industries
Dec 4, 2025
With CUSMA exemptions protecting the bulk of Canada-U.S. trade, most U.S. tariff revenue collected on imports from Canada this year have come from product specific (section 232) tariffs, imposed on autos, metals, and softwood lumber.
This has created a fragmented Canadian economy where a subset of sectors faces a significant trade shock, while most other exports continue to enter the U.S. duty free. Even among the sectors targeted with tariffs, the impacts have been uneven given varying abilities among Canadian exporters and U.S. importers to find alternative international trade partners or domestic sources.
It’s still early, but we now have enough data to begin to assess the impact of tariffs on Canadian industries behind key product groups (two-digit harmonized system codes) accounting for more than 80% of U.S. tariffs collected on imports from Canada this year.
Overall, we track moderately lower manufacturing production and employment in most of the highly tariffed sectors in Canada. These trends have also been much less volatile than international trade flow, that were heavily distorted around when tariffs were implemented (as U.S. importers ....     More >>

TD - The Weekly Bottom Line - Dec 5, 2025
Canadian Highlights
- Canada’s job market defied expectations again in November, pushing the unemployment rate down to a 16-month low.
- The labour market is demonstrating some resiliency, but slack still exists, and the short-term trajectory is marked by significant uncertainty.
- The Bank of Canada will make their final rate announcement of the year next week. We expect the Bank to hold rates steady at 2.25%.
U.S. Highlights
- Real consumer spending was flat in September, ending the third quarter on a soft note. Consumption for the third quarter was up 2.7% (q/q annualized).
- The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge – the core PCE deflator – rose by 0.2% month-on-month in September, as expected. That is still above the Fed’s target at 2.8% year-on-year, but down slightly from 2.9% in August.
- Combined with somewhat soft employment data in November’s ADP report, the Fed looks set to check off markets’ wish list for a rate cut next week.