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By Ashitha Shivaprasad LONDON (Reuters) -Silver that flooded into the United States earlier this year due to fears of tariffs on imports is likely to head back to the London physical market, where shortages of available metal drove the spot price above U.S. futures. Traders seeking to avoid potential tariffs have been shipping silver to the United States due to its inclusion on a draft list of U.S. critical minerals in September, part of a push to secure domestic supply chains for key metals. Spot silver was trading around $50.10 per ounce on Friday, after hitting a record high of $51.22 on Thursday, while silver futures on Comex were last at $48.1. That price differential is wide enough to make it profitable for traders to bring silver back to London, analysts said. "There's a genuine shortage of silver (in London), but you've got 500 million ounces sitting in Comex doing nothing," Ryan Mangan, head of global metals and bulks trading at Macquarie said at a briefing on Thursday. Silver inventories on Comex at 526.1 million troy ounces are close to the record high of 531.9 million ounces hit on October 3. "So much silver went to the U.S. that there's now almost four years' worth of domestic demand stockpiled," said Adrian Ash, head of research at online marketplace BullionVault. "In London, lease rates are a little over 11%, which is phenomenal." Silver lease rates refer to the cost of borrowing physical silver and are an indicator of demand. They are high because of low liquidity in London due to a recent jump in demand from silver-backed exchange-traded funds which came on top of previous flows to the U.S., said a precious metals trader. The effect from the tightness in the London market can already be seen in India, where Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company temporarily halted fresh lump-sum investments in its silver ETF-of-fund on Thursday to protect investors. The metals market expects to hear next week from the U.S. probe into potential tariffs on critical mineral imports ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump in April. However, the government shutdown could delay any decision. "I don't think the market will send too much back unless tariff implications are very clear," said Tai Wong, an independent metals trader. (Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in London; additional reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Pratima Desai and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's economy posted a surprise 60,400 net job gains in September, almost entirely reversing the losses of the previous month, data showed on Friday, but was not enough to bring down its multi-year high unemployment rate. The jobless rate was at 7.1%, same as the prior month when the rate hit a nine-year high outside of the pandemic years. Analysts polled by Reuters has forecast job gains of 5,000 and the unemployment rate to edge up to 7.2%, Statistics Canada said. Canada's employment gains this year has averaged at about 24,000 jobs per month, almost 10,000 less than seen in the previous two years, as U.S. tariffs have either forced job cuts or dissuaded employers from hiring more. The employment increase in September was completely led by full-time work and it increased in 10 out of 16 industry groups, StatsCan said. However, a few metrics showed the impact of low hiring by companies and increasing slack, or underutilized labor force, in the economy. The unemployment rate among youth or those in the age bracket of 15 to 24 years edged up to 14.7% in September, the highest rate in 15 years. The youths represent around 14% of the total labor force in Canada. Also, the proportion of people working in jobs which are unrelated to their qualification as well as immigrants who were over-qualified for their jobs scaled up, reflecting tough labor market conditions, the statistics agency said. The Bank of Canada has warned that slack was building up in the economy and continued uncertainty and impact of tariffs could lead to further labor market weakness.  A silver lining, however, was in the manufacturing sector which posted its first increase in job gains since January. This sector accounts for almost a tenth of the labor force and has been the worst hit due to U.S. tariffs this year. But September data showed this sector posted the highest jobs gains in absolute numbers at 27,800, a jump of 1.5% from August. Agriculture sector posted an increase of 6.1% and jobs in the natural resources sector increased by 2.2%. The average hourly wage of permanent employees – a gauge closely tracked by the Bank of Canada to ascertain inflationary trends – grew by 3.6% in September on a yearly basis to C$37.87, same percentage increase as last month. (Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; Editing by Dale Smith)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)