Julian Beltrame, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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OTTAWA - Canada's economy exhibited signs of coming back to life in August with the first job gains in three months, but mounting bankruptcies and further slippage in the stock market suggest the country is far from flourishing.

Statistics Canada reported Friday there were 15,200 more Canadians working in August than the previous month, keeping the unemployment rate at 6.1 per cent.

The modest rebound suggests July's whopping loss of 55,000 jobs - 95,000 in the private sector - represented a sampling error or temporary factors.

With a federal election appearing imminent, the August numbers bring some relief to the governing Conservatives, who the opposition parties have accused of squandering the robust economy they inherited in 2006.

"I think it helps them in that there's no avalanche of unemployment that they're getting caught up in," said Bill Watson, an economics professor at McGill University.

But investors appeared unimpressed.

The Toronto stock market's main index continued sliding after the employment numbers were released, posting triple-digit losses through much of the day before recovering for a tiny gain of 2.28 points to 12,816.42 at close. Still, the Toronto index plunged almost 1,000 points in four days this week. The Canadian dollar rose 0.55 cent to 94.05 cents US.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcies reported many more Canadians were being pushed into bankruptcy.

Personal bankruptcies totalled 7,452 in July, 19 per cent more than a year ago.

But the Canadian data shone compared with the news from the United States, where 605,000 fewer people had jobs in August than at the start of the year. The government said 84,000 jobs disappeared in August, jolting the jobless rate to 6.1 per cent from 5.7 per cent.

So far this year, Canada has added a modest 86,900 net jobs, down from 221,000 during the first eight months of last year.

"In normal circumstances, this would be a ho-hum report," Douglas Porter of BMO Capital Markets said of the Canadian data.

"But compared to July's dismal report and compared to today's release in the U.S., it certainly stands tall."

At 6.1 per cent in both countries, it is the first time since February 1982 that the official U.S. unemployment rate has not been below Canada's.

Economists have long pointed out that different methods of counting the jobless likely cause the U.S. rate to be understated by a least half a percentage point compared with Canada.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty welcomed the August employment gains and pointed out that Canada's record of creating jobs is well ahead of the U.S.

"Nevertheless, global economic factors and a widespread slowdown continue to have an impact on Canada," he said in a statement released by his office.

Continuing U.S. weakness may help Prime Minister Stephen Harper fend off criticism that his government mismanaged the economy. But it also means a strong recovery is likely still a long way off for Canada.

Forecasting firm Global Insight Canada further downgraded its forecast for economic growth to 0.8 per cent this year. It predicted Friday that 2009 will bring only moderate relief with a gross domestic product advance of 1.7 per cent.

Managing director Dale Orr speculated that soft U.S. demand for Canadian manufactured exports almost certainly dragged Ontario into a recession - two negative quarters - in the first half of 2008.

"Ontario's economy usually suffers more than any other province when the U.S. economy weakens," he explained.

However, Ontario returned to the positive side of the job creation picture last month by adding 14,000 workers.

Nationally, the beleaguered manufacturing sector added 13,800 employees, Statistics Canada said.

The private sector added 40,900 workers in August after shedding 95,000 in July. Meanwhile, public-sector employment fell by 23,900 last month.

The country had 16,100 more full-time workers in August than in July, with areas of strength including construction, utilities, education, and accommodation and food services.

But employment declined by 22,000 in health care and social assistance in August, and agriculture pruned 18,000 workers.

Statistics Canada said hourly wages were 3.8 per cent higher than a year earlier, modestly ahead of the current 3.4 per cent rate of inflation.

"The broader picture is that Canadian employment gains since the start of the year have been soft, if not disastrously so, and that there are some signs that wage inflation is easing off," commented CIBC World Markets economist Avery Shenfeld.

"Even with the solid August numbers, the trend for employment in the last three months remains decidedly negative, and employment is up only 0.5 per cent since last December."