• The Canadian economy added 72.5K jobs in March, a little less than the 80K expected. 
• The Unemployment Rate dropped to 5.3% as forecast from 5.5%, and the BoC is likely to view the data as strong. 
• The loonie did not see much of a reaction to the data. 

The Canadian economy added 72,500 jobs in March, a tad below the median economist forecast for 80,000 jobs to have been added on the month, a report released by Statistics Canada on Friday showed. That marked a significant deceleration in the pace of job gains versus February when 336,600 jobs were added. 

In terms of the breakdown, the Canadian economy added 92,700 full-time jobs and lost 20,300 part-time jobs. The Unemployment Rate dropped as expected to 5.3% from 5.5% in February, while the Participation Rate remained unchanged at 65.4%. 

Market Reaction 

The loonie did not really see much of a reaction to the latest broadly as expected Canadian labour market figures. The BoC is likely to interpret the report as strong, given it showed a decent pace of job gains last month, which is likely to underpin expectations that the bank hikes interest rates by 50 bps at its next meeting.