For the first time in 10 months, Canadian non-farm payroll employment rose by 74,300 in July, Statistics Canada said Wednesday.

The figure is up 0.5% from June and is the first monthly increase since payroll employment peaked in October 2008.

While up in July, total non-farm payroll employment remains 335,400, or 2.2%. below the peak of October 2008.

The index is a broad survey of the number of salaried jobs across the country, not including employment on farms and other sectors often too volatile to gauge.

For the third straight month, the proportion of sectors seeing employment gains increased during the month. Some 57% of industries increased employment during the month, up from 47% in June.

At 82%, the service sector accounted for the vast majority of the growth in payroll employment but goods-producing industries such as motor vehicle manufacturing also saw more than 4,000 new jobs created.

Payroll employment grew in nearly all provinces in July, with the biggest gains in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. Nova Scotia was the only province without job growth.

The total number of hours worked by hourly paid employees fell by 1.7% between July 2008 and July 2009, the agency said. When employment peaked in October 2008, annual growth in hours worked was 6.5%.

Average weekly earnings were 1.6% higher than the same time last year, at $824 during the month.

U.S. continues to shed private sector jobs in September

Meanwhile the pace of job layoffs in the United States didn’t slow much in September.

Private-sector jobs in the U.S. fell 254,000 in September, according to a national employment report published Wednesday by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers.

The ADP loss is greater than the 240,000 drop projected by economists.

IE