07:00 AM EDT, 08/12/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Bank of Montreal (BMO) said it continues to see softening underlying job market conditions in Canada, and the July report was another poor print.

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) can be "extremely noisy," but over the latest six months, job growth has faded sharply -- just a 4,5000 average monthly job gain over that period, noted the bank.

That's a sharp turn from the robust 47,000 per-month average seen through January.

This plays into the Bank of Canada's bias to ease somewhat further and BMO's view is that the economy probably needs rates at least at the low end of the neutral range.

However, it doesn't flag recession-like conditions. The six-month job growth trends have seen slowdowns to around current rates within cycles before, pointed out the bank.

One case was around 2015, when oil-producing provinces were struggling with a downside oil price shock, which prompted the BoC to ease by 50 bps without a true recession.

This time, Ontario -- trade war with the United States and real estate recession -- is struggling the most, added BMO