The unemployment rate is down to its lowest level in four years after the economy created a surprising number of jobs to end off 2012. Statistics Canada says 40-thousand full-time jobs were added in December, dropping the jobless rate to 7.1 per cent. That easily topped economist estimates for a gain of just five-thousand jobs nationally. Ontario accounted for about three-quarters of the new jobs. Also good news south of the border where U-S employers added 155-thousand jobs in December, while the unemployment rate held the line at 7.8 per cent last month.