07:50 AM EDT, 08/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) at 8:30 a.m. ET for July is the lone key release on Friday, said Bank of Montreal (BMO).

The bank noted that the "uncomfortable" upward trend in the unemployment rate likely continued in July, as ongoing modest job gains are consistently dwarfed by booming labor force growth. The latter accompanies strong population growth, which hasn't shown signs of ebbing yet.

BMO's call for a 20,000 increase in employment is modestly below the average gain over the past year as the Ontario LCBO strike sidelined about 10,000 workers. The bank recalled that that will reverse in the August figures.

The anticipated sub-par increase would push the jobless rate up a tick to 6.5%, the highest since 2017 -- excluding the COVID-19 pandemic. With the advance estimate on Q2 gross domestic product (GDP) coming in better than expected, BMO will be watching July's hours worked to get a pulse on how Q3 began.