Loonie rises on better-than-expected jobs data

The Canadian dollar rose on Friday, lifted by surprise positive jobs data that raised optimism about the Canadian jobs market despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada revealed today that the economy has lost 1.994 million jobs in April, but came better than forecasts of -4 million.

The Canadian unemployment rate rose to 7.8% in March and reached 13.8% in April, also lower than forecasts of 18%.

The housing starts index also rose by 171,000, higher than estimates of 107,000, while the building permits index fell 13.2%, better than forecasts o 20.1%.

As of 16:40 GMT, CAD/USD rose 0.4% to 0.7187, after hitting earlier an intraday high of 0.7193 and a low of 0.7144.