OTTAWA—Statistics Canada says the Canadian economy created more jobs than economists expected in December.

The agency says 40,000 new jobs were created last month.

Economists had expected an increase of just 5,000.

The unemployment rate slipped by one-tenth of a percentage points to 7.1 per cent.

That compared with expectations of an increase to 7.3 per cent.

The better than expected results follows a strong November when the economy created 59,300 jobs.

Decembers gains were entirely from new full-time work.

Statistics Canada says 41,200 new full-time jobs were added.

Part-time employment saw a decline of 1,400 jobs.

Provincially, Nova Scotia was the only province to show a dro in the number of jobs, while the rest either posted gains or were little changed for the month.