OTTAWA, April 8: Canada’s economy created only 4,400 jobs in March, a worse than expected performance which analysts said made it unlikely that the Bank of Canada would raise interest rates anytime soon. Statistics Canada said on Friday that the unemployment rate in March fell 0.1 percentage points to 6.9 per cent, its lowest level since January 2001, because fewer people were looking for work.

But the figures came as a nasty surprise to market observers, who had predicted that while the unemployment rate would stay unchanged at 7.0pc, the economy would create 15,000 jobs.

A gain of 33,900 part-time jobs in March was off-set by a loss of 29,500 full-time positions.

—Reuters