Canada’s unemployment rate reached nearly its highest point since 2016 as the economy shed 66,000 jobs in August, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
The unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points in August to 7.1 per cent, a level last seen in May 2016 if the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021 were excluded, the data agency said.
The unemployment rate, or the number of people unemployed out of the total labour force, has been rising consistently this year, up from a 6.6 per cent rate in January.
Of the 66,000 jobs lost, they were largely in part-time work. Reduced hiring and layoffs largely fuelled those numbers, Statistics Canada said, with the layoff rate rising to one per cent in August, compared to 0.9 per cent at the same time last year.
This comes after the economy lost a total of 41,000 jobs last month.
The figures are more dire than some economists had predicted — a Reuters poll ahead of the release predicted a gain of 10,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to rise to 7 per cent.
