Financial Literacy

Statistics Canada announced this morning that employment increased by a stronger than expected 32,300 in March, driven by full-time job gains. The unemployment rate was unchanged at a four-decade low of 5.8% indicating that the economy is at or near full employment. In the first quarter of 2018, employment edged down (-40,000 or -0.2%) reflecting a decrease in January. On a longer-term basis, jobs have been on an uptrend since the second half of 2016 despite a price-induced weakening in the oil sector. Over the past year, total employment rose by nearly 300,000 (+1.6%), driven by a surge in full-time work and a net decline in part-time jobs-all excellent news for the economy. Over the same period, total hours worked grew by 2.2%. Employment rose in Quebec and Saskatchewan, while there was little change in the rest of the country. As the table below shows, British Columbia continues to post the lowest jobless rate in Canada at a stable 4.7% followed by Ontario at 5.5%. Quebec is third

While updating the extensive RateSeer database of lenders and banks in the Baltimore, Maryland area, we learned that the 1st Mariner Bank and the Howard Bank merged. The information provided below was copied from the Howard Bank Welcome web page . To read the entire Welcome message, visit the Howard Bank webpage. Howard Bank and 1st Mariner Bank share the vision of being the premier business bank in the Greater Baltimore region offering a sophisticated array of products, local underwriting, decision making and policy setting. In addition, too few banks have focused on the Greater Baltimore community as their home market for corporate philanthropy, employee volunteerism and advocacy. The combination of Howard Bank and 1st Mariner Bank enables us to achieve the vision of becoming the region’s leading business bank in a relentless way. Together, we become the largest community bank headquartered in the Baltimore metropolitan market with the 7th largest deposit market share and the