09:04 AM EST, 01/30/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) Thursday continued to point to a soft Canadian labor market, even after accounting for the impact of strike activity, said CIBC.

Employment fell by 56,000 in November, although 38,000 of that was driven by the transportation & warehousing sector which included a negative impact from striking postal workers, noted the bank.

Still, even excluding that area, the 18,000 drop in national employment pointed to the continuation of a weak trend stemming back three months already, stated CIBC.

The modest 0.8% rise in SEPH employment over the past year is well below the 1.9% increase in the more widely followed Labour Force Survey (LFS). With the LFS still picking up strong population growth, lagging the deceleration seen in the quarterly demographic figures and likely flattering the job count, it's possible that the SEPH survey is providing a more accurate picture of employment trends at the moment, added the bank.

Elsewhere in Thursday's report, job vacancies and the vacancy rate held broadly flat relative to the prior month and at fairly low levels historically, while the number of unemployed persons per vacancy continued to increase.

The fixed weight measure of wage growth remained elevated -- 6.3% year over year although the Bank of Canada doesn't appear to be putting much weight on this recently and instead is focusing on other measures adjusted for composition.

If some of the softness seen within recent SEPH surveys shows up in future LFS reports, further rate cuts from the BoC should be expected, according to SEPH.