A construction worker passes a condominium site with a roll of cable in Toronto, Ontario, Canada October 8, 2021. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

By Promit Mukherjee

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's economy posted a surprise 60,400 net job gains in September, almost entirely reversing the losses of the previous month, data showed on Friday, though the unemployment rate remained at a multi-year high.

The jobless rate held at 7.1% from August, when the rate hit a nine-year high outside of the pandemic years.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast job gains of 5,000 and the unemployment rate to edge up to 7.2%, Statistics Canada said.

Canada's employment gains this year have averaged about 24,000 jobs per month, almost 10,000 less than seen in the previous two years, as U.S. tariffs have either forced job cuts or dissuaded employers from hiring more.

The employment increase in September was completely led by full-time work and it increased in 10 out of 16 industry groups, StatsCan said.

However, a few metrics showed the impact of low hiring by companies and increasing slack, or underutilized labor force, in the economy.

The unemployment rate among youth or those in the age bracket of 15 to 24 years edged up to 14.7% in September, the highest rate in 15 years. The youths represent around 14% of the total labor force in Canada.

Also, the proportion of people working in jobs which are unrelated to their qualification as well as immigrants who were over-qualified for their jobs scaled up, reflecting tough labor market conditions, the statistics agency said.

The Bank of Canada has warned that slack was building up in the economy and continued uncertainty and the impact of tariffs could lead to further labor market weakness.

Weaker economic data could tilt the Bank of Canada toward a rate cut later this month after it reduced rates by 25 basis point to 2.5% in September.

"Overall, today's data still suggests that a large degree of slack remains within the labor market, which we think justifies a further interest rate cut from the Bank of Canada," said Andrew Grantham, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets.

The strength in employment seen in September could delay the timing of a cut, particularly if the upcoming data on inflation shows prices firmed up, he added.

Money markets are betting that the odds of a 25 basis point rate cut this month are at around 72%.

The Canadian dollar firmed after the data and was trading up 0.27% to 1.4018 against the U.S. dollar, 71.34 U.S. cents.

The manufacturing sector posted its first increase in job gains since January.

This sector accounts for almost a tenth of the labor force and has been the worst hit due to U.S. tariffs this year. But September data showed this sector posted the highest jobs gains in absolute numbers at 27,800, a jump of 1.5% from August.

The agriculture sector posted an increase of 6.1% and jobs in the natural resources sector increased by 2.2%.

The average hourly wage of permanent employees - a gauge closely tracked by the Bank of Canada to ascertain inflationary trends - grew by 3.6% in September on a yearly basis to C$37.87, same percentage increase as last month.

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Dale Smith and Toby Chopra)