Unemployment sunk to 5.8% last month, said Statistics Canada today.

The Canadian economy created 46,000 new jobs in January, boosting the employment rate to a record high 63.8% and matching the 33-year low reported in October 2007.

This is much higher than the 10,000 new jobs and 6% growth economists had predicted.

With January’s gains, employment growth over the past 12 months was estimated at 337,000, up 2%.

“So far the Canadian labour market is holding up remarkably well, despite the slowdown in the U.S,” said Jacqui Douglas, economics strategist at TD Securities, in a note. “This reinforces the idea that the Bank of Canada will not need to make the deep, protracted rate cuts that we’ve seen from the Federal Reserve to keep the Canadian economy afloat.”

TD Securities is forecasting another 75bps cut to rate cuts, with a 50bps cut at the March 4 meeting and a 25bps rate cut at the April 22 meeting.

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, is also upbeat about the report, but warns that a deeper economic dive in the U.S. would eventually worm its way up over the border.

“Still, the sturdy jobs picture casts some serious doubt on just how fast the Bank of Canada will cut in the near-term—at the end of the day, the jobless rate is at a cycle low and wage growth is at a cycle high, so where’s the urgency to cut rates?” he asked, in a morning note.

The employment gains this month are due to full time jobs being created. Over the last 12 months, full-time work has grown at nearly double the rate of part time.

Gains in January were widespread across a number of industries, most notably in professional, scientific and technical services and in construction. Overall, employment gains were tempered by decreases in information, culture and recreation as well as in retail and wholesale trade.

In January, the number of employees in the private sector jumped by 77,000. Despite this increase, the number of private sector employees was only 0.7% higher than a year earlier.