Canadian employees took a big hit in April. Statistics Canada reported Friday that the unemployment rate climbed to 7.5% during the month.

The largest decline was in Ontario, where employment fell by 27,000 in April. The biggest area of loss across the country was among part-time employees. Part-time employment fell by 29,000 and was only partly offset by an increase of almost 11,000 in full-time. Analysts say this is due to the impact of the SARS outbreak, and they expect a recovery in the coming months.

Unfortunately, manufacturing employment has continued to drop, indicating some spill over from the weak American economy. It’s down 38,000 so far this year. On the positive side, full-time employment is up by 95,000 so far this year, continuing an upward trend that began in 2002.

Increases in jobs for the first quarter were 49,000. That’s much lower than the increase of 216,000 in the same period of 2002.

Futures and overseas equity markets seem to have recovered from the gloomy outlook expressed by the U.S. Federal Reserve earlier in the week, pointing to a positive open for North American equity markets.

The Canadian dollar is still doing well. Before StatsCan’s release of the jobs report it was trading at US71.62¢ and rose to US71.70¢ afterward.

Despite obvious signs of weakness in the American economy, a survey taken by the online version of the Wall Street Journal is indicating that economists are expecting their economy is expected to get a lift from the speedy end to the war in Iraq. But they have ratcheted back their forecasts for the second half of the year. A group of 54 economists who participated in survey this month left their predictions for second-quarter growth, as measured by gross domestic product, unchanged at a 2.1% annualized rate. That’s higher than the practically lifeless 1.6% rate recorded in the first quarter.

Overseas, the Nikkei average gained 120.61 points or 1.5% to 8,152.16. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 183.11 points or 2.1% to 9,084.16.

Gains on the European bourses have been slight Friday. In London, at midday, the FTSE 100 index is up half of 1%. Frankfurt is up a mere 0.4% and Paris is flat.