July Jobs Report: Canada Loses 31K Jobs, Unemployment Rises

July Jobs Report: Canada Loses 31K Jobs, Unemployment Rises

By: Daniel Steingold | August 06, 2016

It wasn’t just the U.S. that had a jobs report on Friday— their neighbors up north also shared a jobs report of their own.

Unfortunately, Canada’s jobs report wasn’t nearly as encouraging as that of America’s, as 31,200 jobs were shed, and unemployment rose to 6.9 percent.

The job creation numbers— or lack thereof— were the worst in five years. The figures were even more discouraging considering that analysts had predicted a net gain of 10,000 jobs for the month.

Delving into the statistics does not paint a pretty picture. 71,400 full-time jobs were lost during July, which was offset by an increase of 40,200 part-time jobs. This suggests that many Canadians are becoming underemployed.

In addition, the youngest working demographic— those from ages 15 to 24— saw their ranks decrease by 28,000 in the Canadian job market.

Although it is unclear as to why the Canadian economy lost so many jobs, some think it is because thousands of temporary Census jobs ended. The fact that public sector employment decreased by 42,000 in July, would seem to support this theory.

The province of Ontario was most affected in terms of employment declines, while Newfoundland and Labrador also saw a decrease in their workforce.

British Columbia actually had a healthy increase in its employment numbers, and now has the lowest unemployment rate in the entire nation at 5.6 percent.

The report also caused the value of the Canadian dollar to fall close to a full cent in comparison to the U.S. dollar.


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