04:18 PM EDT, 09/25/2025 (MT Newswires) -- The Toronto Stock Exchange fell for a third day on Thursday moving off its recent trend of regular record highs, on profit taking and as the attention of market watchers appears to be drifting back to economic concerns, with National Bank not expecting hiring to meaningfully pick up this year, which will only add to labor market slack.

The S&P/TSX Composite Index closed down 24.97 points to 29,731.98, even as most sectors were higher. It added to a total of more than 200 points lost over the prior two sessions. The index has dropped from Monday's record close of 29,958.98, and from a intraday highs above the 30,000 level touched on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Among sectors, the Battery Metals Index was up 3.6% and Base Metals up near 1%. In contrast, Info Tech was down 2.5% and Health Care down 1.3%.

Taylor Schleich, National Bank's Director, Economics and Strategy, said the most insightful component of the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) released earlier today is not overall employment, given how backward looking it is. Instead, National Bank focuses on job vacancies as they offer a read on labor demand and what hiring may look like in the future. "Today's data are not inspiring," he said, noting vacant positions fell in July and are now down 12% from the end of 2024. The vacancy rate, or the ratio of open jobs to total labor supply, fell to 2.6% versus 3.1% a year ago and 5.6% back in 2022. "Note that this recent deterioration is more pronounced than in the U.S. where, despite the Fed's worries, labour demand is near pre-COVID levels," Schleich added.

Looked at another way, Schleich noted there were 3.3 unemployed Canadians fighting for each vacant position in July. Outside of COVID, he said, "things haven't looked this dire since early 2017", when the national jobless rate was also around 7%. According to Schleich, the key difference is that back then, the labor market was improving. Today, it's moving in the opposite direction. Also, monetary policy looked a lot different then too. In 2016, the BoC was fostering growth with a "very" accommodative policy rate (0.5%) while today, policy is more or less neutral.

"Suffice it to say," Schleich said, "we're not expecting hiring to meaningfully pick up this year which will only add to labour market slack. And while the BoC had previously contended that labour market weakness is concentrated in trade-sensitive sectors, that's not really backed up by these data. Goods producing (i.e, tariff-exposed) industries have seen vacancies dry up more (-18% Y/Y) but a 14% Y/Y drop in services sector openings doesn't warrant the 'resilient' label that some had earlier applied to Canada."

Schleich added: "When it comes to monetary policy, markets are pricing further easing which is warranted. However, the next cut isn't fully priced until January which is too late in our view. We see higher odds of an October cut, and the likelihood of even more rate relief being needed is growing."

Elsewhere, Robert Kavcic, Senior Economist at BMO Capital Market, noted Quebec's economy contracted 2.4% annualized in Q2, which is weaker than the 1.6% decline seen nationally. He said this is no major surprise given that Quebec was always going to get hit relatively hard by U.S. tariffs, notably through exposure to steel and aluminum. Kavcic added: "While we had already built a very tough Q2 into our 2025 outlook, there is some further downside risk to our call of just 0.7% growth in 2025. That would leave Quebec at the weak end of the provincial growth table this year."

Of commodities, gold had edged higher late midafternoon on Thursday, rising off a day-prior drop even as the dollar and treasury yields rose after U.S. initial jobless claims slowed last week and second-quarter gross domestic product growth was revised higher. Gold for December delivery was last seen up $9.30 to US$3,777.40 per ounce, after falling off a record US$3,815.70 set on Tuesday.

But West Texas Intermediate crude oil closed with a minor drop as traders took profits after prices rose to a three-week high amid Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil industry and an unexpected drop in the U.S. inventories last week. WTI crude oil for November delivery closed down $0.01 to $64.99 per barrel, edging down from the highest since Sept. 2, while November Brent crude was up $0.06 to $69.37.