Americas August 2007

• Brazil’s Q1 2007 GDP increased 0.8 percent year-overyear as the services sector produced a 1.7-percent increase in its GDP contribution.
  
• Canada’s Q1 2007 unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.1 percent from the previous quarter and the same quarter a year earlier. “Employment growth resumed in June, up an estimated 35,000, following little change in April and May,” Statistics Canada said in a press release. ”Despite this gain, the national unemployment rate remained at 6.1 percent for the fifth consecutive month, as more people entered the labor force in June in search of work.”