No light at end of tunnel in Canada jobs, trade data

Trade and employment data showed Canada still mired in recession at the middle of this year, and virtually guaranteed that the Bank of Canada would keep interest rates at rock bottom until mid-2010. Figures from Statistics Canada showed that fewer people lost their jobs in June than analysts had expected.
But that appeared to be due largely to what one analyst dubbed a "do-it-yourself recovery" - people trickling back to work through self-employment or in part-time jobs while full-time job creation was scarce. Net job losses in June totalled 7,400 and the unemployment rate rose to 8.6 percent from 8.4 percent in May, the highest since February 1998, Statscan said on Friday.