Respected Economist Casts Doubt On ‘Record’ StatsCan Job Claim, Compares It To “Dumbest Student” Handing In ‘A’ Report

Comments from Gluskin Sheff + Associates Chief Economist David Rosenberg echo what many Canadians are feeling about the economy – the supposedly ‘record’ claim doesn’t match what’s actually going on.

With the Trudeau government trying to boost their political fortunes by hyping up the April jobs report, highly-respected Chief Economist David Rosenberg is casting some serious doubt on it.

The Statistics Canada report claimed that 106,500 jobs were created in April, which followed a loss of 7,200 jobs in March.

Speaking to BNN Bloomberg, here’s what Rosenberg said regarding that report:

“Did you really believe that the Canadian labour market is so volatile that we could have a [7,200] decline in the labour force in one month, followed by an 100,000-increase in the next month? Is our labour market more volatile than the stock market is? It’s hard to believe. Somehow we’re creating record jobs and in the same survey in the United States, they’re losing jobs in a significant way. So what I’m trying to say is, calm down a little bit. There’s no way that the Canadian economy is nearly as strong as this number would lead you to suggest.”

He also compared it to a dumb student handing in an ‘A’ report:

“I thought we were battling a housing bubble in this country. Meanwhile, we know that consumers are going on the debt treadmill and doing more to repair their balance sheets than head out to the shopping malls. It’s like you’re a teacher in high school and your dumbest student just handed in an ‘A’ report and you just don’t really know what to do with it. I don’t give it an ‘A’ by the way.”

What Rosenberg is saying matches with what many people have noticed about the economy over recent years. The information reported by Statistics Canada seems increasingly disconnected with what’s actually happening on the ground.

Almost nobody in Canada feels like things are going well, and numerous surveys have shown rising pessimism among Canadians. In fact, nearly half of the country fears going bankrupt if the cost of servicing debt continues to rise, and half of Canadians have almost no financial cushion on a monthly basis.

So, while well-connected political elites may be benefiting from the economy, the vast majority of Canadians are not. And now, many will start to wonder whether we can even really trust the information that the supposedly ‘impartial’ agencies are sharing.

Spencer Fernando

Photo – Screenshot