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The previously hot labour market stalled out to end the summer with a loss of 42,000 jobs in August, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The unemployment rate held steady at 6.4 per cent last month, the agency said.

August’s losses fell short of economists’ expectations for a gain of 15,000 positions.

It puts an end to a hot streak for the labour market that saw 181,000 jobs added from April through July. The unemployment rate had dropped by half a percentage point over the previous three months.

StatCan said there was little change in the private sector and self-employment in August, but the public sector shed 20,000 positions in its third straight month of losses.

The business, building and other support services sector led declines, followed by public administration, natural resources and utilities.

Andrew Hencic, senior economist at TD Bank, suggested in a note to clients Friday that one month of soft data should not define the labour market. Steadiness in the unemployment rate is more important than the headline job losses, he argued.

“Although disappointing, given the noisy nature of the data a step backwards is not a major surprise after a string of hot reports,” Hencic said.

The manufacturing industry has been hit hard by U.S. tariffs but the sector proved to be a surprise pocket of strength in August with a gain of 22,000 jobs.

August’s job figures only partially capture impacts from a new wave of 50 per cent tariffs on about $28 billion worth of Canadian goods applied by the United States mid-month.

StatCan said the layoff rate – the proportion of people who were unemployed as the result of a layoff between July and August – was 0.8 per cent in August. That rate stood at one per cent a year ago and averaged 0.9 per cent for the same months in the three years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

For industries reliant on export demand from the United States, StatCan said the layoff rate was marginally higher over the past 12 months when compared with other sectors.

The annual increase in average hourly wages cooled to two per cent in August, the agency said, down from 2.8 per cent in July and 3.3 per cent in June. The last time the annual wage increase was that low was November 2017.

Young workers aged 15 to 24 faced 19,000 job losses in August. Despite a tough end to the season, StatCan said this past summer jobs market was statistically better for youth than last year.

On average, the jobless rate for students returning to school in the fall stood at 15.9 per cent from May to August this year – two percentage points lower than the same period in 2025.

The Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate steady at 2.25 per cent earlier this week.

The central bank signalled at the time that new U.S. tariffs were clouding the outlook for the economy. Governor Tiff Macklem said the economy was showing signs of a rebound heading into the re-escalating trade war, which puts Canada on more solid footing to handle the new duties.

At the same time, he said the central bank was concerned about lingering risks to inflation tied to the ongoing war in Iran.

CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said in a note to clients that the weak August jobs figures reinforce the case that growth is set to slow in the third quarter, adding to similarly soft data prints for exports and gross domestic product.

“With heightened uncertainty regarding U.S. trade, we continue to think that the Bank of Canada will remain on hold even after policymakers expressed greater concern over the inflation outlook earlier this week,” Grantham said.

The Bank of Canada held its benchmark interest rate steady for the seventh consecutive time as the escalating trade war with the United States risks slowing economic growth while pushing up consumer prices.
 
As widely expected, the central bank’s governing council kept the policy rate at 2.25 per cent.
 
Governor Tiff Macklem and his team have kept monetary policy in cruise control since last October, as the bank navigated a tricky combination of rising global energy prices – the result of the war in the Middle East – and weak domestic growth tied in large part to the trade war with the United States.
 
The breakdown in trade negotiations with Washington last month, another wave of American tariffs, and Ottawa’s threat to retaliate has only added to the uncertainty about the trajectory of the Canadian economy.
 
New U.S. tariffs on around $28-billion worth of Canadian goods will weigh on exports, jobs and investment in Canada – all of which should put downward pressure on inflation over time. At the same time, Canada’s “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs on American imports – scheduled to come into force on Sept. 8 – will push up prices in Canada.

The federal government will announce an extension of its gas tax break Wednesday, just days before Ottawa is planning to introduce new countertariffs on a range of U.S. goods, according to a senior government official.

The temporary tax break will be extended to Jan. 31, 2027, the official said.

The Globe is not naming the official because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the announcement.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will formally announce the extension at a Wednesday afternoon news conference in Ottawa.

The temporary tax break was introduced through the government’s April spring update. It was set to expire on Sept. 7.

The break cuts 10 cents per litre from the price of gas and four cents from diesel.

The Liberal government is planning to impose countertariffs on U.S. goods valued at $27.6-billion as of Sept. 8. These new measures are in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s new 50-per-cent tariffs on about $28-billion worth of Canadian goods, imposed after trade negotiations between the two countries collapsed last month.

• Chevron has been assigned two additional oilfields in the Orinoco Belt, the region that contains most of Venezuela’s vast extra heavy crude reserves.
• Chevron plans to increase its production in the country to 600,000 barrels per day over the next five years compared with around 280,000 bpd currently.

Chevron announced plans Wednesday to more than double its oil production in Venezuela over the next five years through a $7 billion investment that expands its position in the South American nation.

The oil major has been assigned two additional oilfields in the Orinoco Belt, the region that contains most of Venezuela’s vast extra-heavy crude reserves. Chevron plans to increase its production in the country to 600,000 barrels per day compared with around 280,000 bpd currently.

Chevron is the only U.S. oil major active in Venezuela through joint ventures with state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA.

“With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.

Chevron’s announcement comes as the U.S. government pushes to increase oil production in Venezuela through private investment. The country’s oil infrastructure is in a state of disrepair after years of mismanagement by its socialist government.

President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. secured majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s crude oil reserves, about 20% of the 303 billion barrels the country is thought to possess. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is visiting Venezuela on Wednesday.

Washington has partnered with the private oil company North American Blue Energy Partners to develop those reserves. Venezuela’s interim government has given NABEP concessions to 17 oilfields for 100 years. NABEP, in turn, has granted the U.S. Defense Department a 35% equity stake.

The U.S. captured former President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid in January and seized control of Venezuela’s oil exports. Washington has partnered with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro.

Chevron shares were down less than 1% in premarket trading after the announcement.

• Private companies added 38,000 jobs in August, down from 46,000 and below the estimate for 47,000, for the slowest month since January, according to ADP.
• Three categories accounted for most of the job growth: education and health services, leisure and hospitality and construction. Manufacturing saw a loss of 17,000 jobs.
• The report comes ahead of the BLS nonfarm payrolls count, due out Friday.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/02/private-payrolls-rose-by-38000-in-august-fewer-than-expected-adp-reports.html

Canadian manufacturers looking to learn about weathering market ups and downs could take notes from Linamar Corp., the Guelph, Ont.-based auto parts company.

Linamar has spent the last 60 years reinventing itself to stay relevant, and along the way has navigated technological disruption, shifting trade policies, a global financial crisis and the auto industry’s biggest transitions in decades. Linda Hasenfratz, the executive chair of the board, and the company’s former chief executive officer, points to a combination of innovation, flexibility and an unusually long-term plan as keys to Linamar’s longevity.

Linamar has always kept a close eye on industry transition. About a decade ago, reading the direction the automobile market was going, the company invested in electric vehicle (EV) technology. However, they also ensured the components it was producing for EVs could also be used for hybrid and internal combustion engine vehicles as well.

“When the battery electric [demand] didn’t materialize, we took all that equipment and shifted it into programs that were selling,” says Ms. Hasenfratz. “When you can’t predict the future, you don’t want to make a big bet on something that might not pay off.”

Companies like Linamar are “bridges of the competing automotive futures”, says Romel Mostafa, an assistant professor of strategy at Western University’s Ivey Business School. “They’ve been able to play both [markets] and that requires managerial astuteness. Fortune favours the bold, but also the astute.”

After immigrating from Hungary, Frank Hasenfratz started a one-man machine shop that became Linamar in 1966 (named for daughters Linda and Nancy and his wife Margaret). The company now has more than 37,000 employees and 87 manufacturing locations globally. It recently reported second-quarter net earnings of $183-million, up from almost $127-million in the same period last year, as sales increased by $500-million to a record $3.14-billion in Q2.

Linamar is now a diversified advanced manufacturing company. Beyond the automotive sector, it creates solutions for industries including agricultural, medtech, water, power, defence and robotics.

The company’s culture of flexibility also shapes how it responds to uncertainty. Instead of fearing periods of economic or technological change, Linamar sees them as opportunities, says Ms. Hasenfratz.

“We’ve always been quite conservative in how we run our balance sheets, so we don’t carry a lot of debt,” she explains. “So in those challenging economic times, there’s going to be companies that are struggling and that might create an opportunity from an acquisition perspective, for instance, to bring more technology in at a more reasonable price.”

Rather than developing every new technology or product internally, Linamar has used its acquisitions to expand into technologies it believes will be important for the next generation of vehicles.

In the last couple of years, Linamar has acquired a substantial part of Mobex Global’s U.S. operations and Dura Shiloh’s battery enclosures business. That expanded its capabilities in the EV market, and added propulsion-agnostic technologies that can be used in EV, hybrid and internal combustion engines.

Adapting to what’s happening in the moment has been part of the company’s fabric from the beginning. Underpinning all of the company’s business decisions is its “100-year plan” – a mindset designed to remind Linamar’s leaders that every decision should grow the business not just the next quarter, but well into the next decade.

“We’re 20 years into this 100-year plan, and we’re thinking generationally,” says Ms. Hasenfratz.

She says Linamar’s main objective is to build a business that can succeed regardless of how markets evolve.

Marvin Ryder, an associate professor at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, says manufacturing leaders must manage countless day-to-day challenges while continually adapting to new ones, as failing to keep pace can threaten the business’s survival.

“The people who run these businesses I describe as ‘jugglers’. The average Canadian hears a story like Linamar and takes it for granted that a business can be around for 60 years or 100 years or 150 years. In fact, it’s the opposite. These are rare and beautiful things.”

Long-term success depends not only on consistently delivering quality products, but also on anticipating changing customer demand through research and development or strategic acquisitions that bring new capabilities, says Mr. Ryder.

While manufacturers may start out as the makers of an item or two, top ones branch out based on the market. For Linamar, he says their core product is also their reliability and quality.

“I think Linamar’s success isn’t traced to a single product or piece of innovation, but to a consistent manufacturing standard,” Mr. Ryder says.

“It’s too hard to predict the future, especially these days with technology evolving so quickly,” adds Ms. Hasenfratz. “Just stay super flexible and try to develop a strategy that will be successful in as many different future scenarios as you can envision.”

Loblaw Cos. Ltd. L-T +2.41%increase is increasing the number of new stores it plans to open this year.

The company behind Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart said Tuesday it now expects to open about 75 new locations this year, up from earlier plans for about 70.

Loblaw chief executive Per Bank says Canadians are being thoughtful about every dollar they spend.

“We see that in how they shop our stores, the brands they choose, and how they use our loyalty and e-commerce solutions,” Bank said in a statement.

“We have a significant investment program underway, and we’re putting that capital behind the parts of our business that meets the needs of Canadians. That includes accelerating our network expansion efforts to reach more customers, faster.”

Loblaw has opened 38 new grocery stores and pharmacies in Canada, including 21 grocery stores and 17 Shoppers Drug Mart locations, so far this year.

The new stores are part of $2.4-billion in planned capital spending for 2026, the second year of the company’s five-year plan to invest $10-billion in Canada by 2030.

Loblaw said it has spent about half of the total for 2026 so far, with plans for the remaining money to include accelerating the opening of new stores, renovating existing locations and continuing to develop new store formats and concepts.

Bank said the company has been happy with how its new stores are performing.

“As they mature, we’re seeing strong double-digit same- store sales growth. That gives us confidence in our expansion strategy and in continuing to invest behind the formats customers are choosing,” he said.

Loblaw’s grocery expansion has been focused on its No Frills and Maxi banners.

Grocers have been expanding their discount footprint across Canada since 2023 as shoppers have been grappling with food inflation coming out of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, pharmacy and health-care services have been projected to grow significantly, partly led by sales of generic weight-loss drugs.

Canadian convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ATD-T +0.97%increase tallied a fifth straight quarter of same-store sales growth in the United States over the summer, maintaining positive momentum in its biggest market as it works to expand its footprint in Europe with an US$8.7-billion deal for Polish retailer Zabka Group SA.

The Laval, Que.-based company, which owns the Circle K chain, on Tuesday published results for the first quarter of the company’s fiscal 2027, ended July 19. It included a 1.7-per-cent year-over-year increase in merchandise sales at comparable U.S. stores. Energy drinks and nicotine products performed particularly well, and the company is taking market share from rivals, it said.

Couche-Tard grows U.S. gas station profits during Middle East war

“We are encouraged by the start to fiscal 2027 and the continued progress we are making” with our strategy, Couche-Tard chief executive officer Alex Miller said in the release.

However, the sales increase isn’t as strong as in previous quarters. And analysts had warned that a sequential slowdown was coming based on the recent performance of some competitors, such as ARKO and Murphy USA.

Overall, net profit came in at US$828.5-million or US$0.90 per diluted share on total revenue of US$21.7-billion for the period, improving on the US$782.5-million during the same quarter last year, Couche-Tard said in a release after market close. The company reports in U.S. dollars.

On an adjusted basis, net earnings were US$827-million or US$0.90 per share. That’s roughly in line with the US$0.89 analysts were expecting. The company sold less gasoline overall but boosted its fuel gross margin in the U.S. and Canada.

After a solid trajectory of profit growth over the past two decades, Couche-Tard’s business has come under pressure more recently as consumers slash their spending to deal with higher levels of debt as well as inflation. Global conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere has added to those worries and industry observers are analyzing whether it will lead to any lasting change in consumer behaviour.

Mr. Miller and his team are trying to make Circle K’s offerings more attractive in response, launching meal deals priced from US$3 to US$6 in the United States and offering rebates on gasoline on certain days in a bid to build customer loyalty. The company has said it expects it can generate year-over-year adjusted earnings-per-share growth of 10 per cent or more from fiscal 2026 through 2030.

While the 15-per-cent EPS growth for the latest quarter is higher than that, “these results may raise questions,” Stifel analyst Martin Landry said in a research note published late Tuesday. “We believe that investors will focus on the deceleration of merchandise same-store-sales growth and the health of the U.S. consumer.”

Couche-Tard launches tender offer for all shares of Polish retailer Zabka

Couche-Tard announced in late July that it is making a multibillion-dollar takeover play for Poland’s Zabka, widening its footprint in Europe with a major push in one of the continent’s fastest-growing economies. Owners of about 57 per cent of Zabka stock are backing the deal and have signed agreements to tender their shares, Couche-Tard said.

The purchase still needs approval by European, Polish, and Romanian regulators, including clearance by the European Commission under the European Union’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation.

It’s the Canadian company’s biggest acquisition to date, further cementing its position in a key part of the world against global rival 7-Eleven. It’s also one of its most unique acquisitions as it takes control of a dominant, technology-powered retailer that could transform the way Circle K operates in other countries.

Couche-Tard has since launched a voluntary tender offer for Zabka at a price of 32 Polish zloty or about US$8.48 a share. That’s a premium of about 9.4 per cent from Zabka’s closing stock price the day before the offer was announced.

Analyst Janusz Pieta at mBank is among those who have argued that Couche-Tard’s offer is too low, raising the possibility that there could be shareholder pressure for better terms. But Couche-Tard’s chief financial officer Filipe Da Silva told The Globe and Mail it’s “already very attractive.”

https://www.thenewsforum.ca/series/stephenledrew?wix-vod-video-id=BmNS315CkkY&wix-vod-comp-id=comp-mrpslmqg