Canada sees little employment growth in last year

The Canadian economy shed 29,000 jobs in April while the unemployment rate remained flat at 6.9%, according to Statistics Canada.

However, the number of people working rose 0.8% from a year earlier, split between full- and part-time workers.

Employment fell in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and New Brunswick but rose in Saskatchewan.

Since August 2013, the Canadian economy has seen little overall employment growth, according to the report.

And labour force participation fell to 66.1% from 66.5% in April 2013.

This is attributed mainly to a decline in the participation rate of people aged 25-54, the group most likely to be in the labour market.

Quebec employment fell by 32,000 jobs in April, while in Newfoundland and Labrador it declined by 3,300.

New Brunswick saw 5,400 fewer people working in the same period, while Ontario's unemployment rate remained flat at 7.4%.

Saskatchewan had 3,000 more people employed last month, hitting a 3.4% unemployment rate - the lowest in the province since 1976.

The prairie province's economy is booming because it lies atop the Bakken oil field, a large patch of petroleum that straddles the US border, Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, told the BBC.