12:27 PM EDT, 06/06/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange is up 73 points at midday with energy (+1.85%) and info tech (+1.5tsx%).

Telecoms and utilities are the sole decliners, down 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively.

The resources heavy index has been supported by commodity prices. Oil prices weakened early on Friday, but stayed near the top of a monthly range on tight North American supply with some Canadian oil-sands projects shuttered due to wildfires, even as OPEC+ continues to add fresh barrels to the market and global growth slows.

Gold was mostly steady even as the dollar and yields were sharply higher after the United States added more new jobs than expected last month. Natural gas edged higher, supported by hot long-term forecasts that offer increased cooling demand.

Focus at home was on Canadian employment data for May

The Canadian labour market basically treaded water again in May, adding only 8.8k net new positions (+0.0% month/month). The details were slightly better, with the private sector up 61k positions (+0.4% m/m), and solid gains in full-time jobs (58k). However, these were mostly offset by losses in part-time jobs (-49k). The unemployment rate rose for the third consecutive month to 7%, the highest rate since Sept 2016 (apart from the pandemic). The labour force grew by 0.2% m/m. Growth in the labour supply has slowed in recent months, but employment growth has slowed further.

The job market, TD Economics noted, is even tougher for students. The unemployment rate for returning students (aged 15-24) was 20.1% -- the highest since the 2009 recession (excluding the pandemic).

Manufacturing has lost jobs for four months now, totaling 55k. But the wholesale and retail trade sector recouped some (+43k) of the 55k jobs lost through March and April. The highest unemployment rates across CMAs were in Windsor (10.8%), Oshawa (9.1%) (three-month moving averages), which have both seen significant increases since January.

On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada opted to wait and see how tariffs would impact the Canadian economy, while also weighing recent hotter than expected inflation readings. "May's jobs report puts another mark in the economic weakness tally. We think this will ultimately lead to further rate cuts from the Bank of Canada," TD added.

Elsewhere, Royce Mendes said Desjardins tracking forecasts still see Q2 GDP growth in a range between 0.0-0.5%, but he added the risk appears to be to the downside given the trade data earlier in the week. Mendes noted today's employment reading was slightly better than what the consensus had expected, "a big sigh of relief" given what could have transpired as a result of the elevated uncertainty. "Rates are higher across the Government of Canada yield curve since this set of data doesn't do anything to suggest that the bottom was falling out of the economy in May," he added.