The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that Canada's economy lost jobs in March for the first time since January, 2022, with the unemployment rate rising to 6.7 per cent from 6.6 per cent the month before, Statistics Canada said Friday. The Post's Gigi Suhanic writes that the economy gave up 33,000 positions last month, missing analysts' estimates of 10,000 jobs lost. However, their unemployment rate prediction was correct. The jobless rate still sits below its recent high of 6.9 per cent in November, 2024, but Statcan said the rate has been trending higher since March, 2023, when it stood at 5 per cent. "Since March 2024, the unemployment rate has remained above its PRECOVID-19 pandemic average of six per cent (from 2017 to 2019)," the agency said in the release. BMO economist Douglas Porter said Friday the March data signalled that "the widespread decline in business (and consumer) sentiment in the past two months played out in real decisions last month." Full-time and private-sector positions took the brunt of the hit, with the former falling by what Mr. Porter called a "heavy 62,000." He thinks the BOC will want to see more data before it implements another rate cut.