Local Analysts Post Jobs Report

The BoC’s need to see an accumulation of evidence before hiking and volatility of the labour data see the below analysts keep their pause calls unchanged.

• BMO: The strong report must make the BoC at least a tad nervous about its freshly-minted pause—we said the bar for any move would be very high, but the employment gain is pretty towering indeed. This is the last jobs report before the March decision, but their upcoming decisions will largely be determined by inflation, and the employment data may prove to be just loud noise, provided inflation continues to ebb.
• CIBC: We still forecast the BoC will remain on hold for the remainder of this year. We should always treat the LFS with caution although the surge in hiring is clearly a sign that the economy is stronger than expected and isn't on the verge of a recession that, up until recently, had been the consensus view for the first half of the year
• RBC: While the BoC will likely look past one strong jobs report, if additional reports prove to be stronger than expected, this would pose upside risk to the current terminal rate forecast of 4.5%.
• TD: Keeping call that rates will stay on hold at 4.5% until early next year when the BoC starts cutting. The narrative can flip on a dime if the next print is deeply negative as can often happen with the wild Canadian jobs data.