The Canadian jobs market has slowed down. Canada’s unemployment rate rose to 7.0% in May, 0.1 percentage point over the previous month, according to Statistics Canada.
25,800 jobs were created, but most of them were part-time or temporary seasonal work. At the same time, many young workers, most of them university and college students, entered the job market looking for summer jobs.
Employment increased in the province of Alberta, while it declined in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Ontario, the unemployment rate rose slightly by 0.1 percentage point to 7.3%. In Quebec there were more people searching for work, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.4 percentage points to 8.0%.
There were more people working in educational services, accommodation and food services, and in agriculture. Jobs were lost in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing in May, while manufacturing and construction remained unchanged.
Canada’s national unemployment by province in May (previous month in brackets):
- Newfoundland 12.7 (12.1)
- Prince Edward Island 12.2 (11.7)
- Nova Scotia 8.9 (8.9)
- New Brunswick 10.2 (10.5)
- Quebec 8.0 (7.6)
- Ontario 7.3 (7.4)
- Manitoba 5.5 (5.9)
- Saskatchewan 3.7 (3.4)
- Alberta 4.6 (4.7)
- British Columbia 6.1 (5.8)
Unemployment in major cities in May (previous month in brackets):
- St. John’s, N.L. 6.4 (5.9)
- Halifax 5.8 (6.1)
- Moncton, N.B. 5.9 (6.8)
- Saint John, N.B. 7.7 (7.3)
- Saguenay, Que. 9.8 (10.1)
- Quebec 5.0 (4.5)
- Sherbrooke, Que. 8.6 (8.3)
- Trois-Rivieres, Que. 8.3 (8.1)
- Montreal 8.0 (7.9)
- Gatineau, Que. 6.5 (6.7)
- Ottawa 6.8 (6.9)
- Kingston, Ont. 6.9 (6.4)
- Peterborough, Ont. 11.1 (11.6)
- Oshawa, Ont. 7.3 (7.0)
- Toronto 7.6 (7.8)
- Hamilton, Ont. 6.9 (6.4)
- St. Catharines-Niagara, Ont. 8.0 (8.2)
- Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. 6.7 (6.8)
- Brantford, Ont. 7.2 (7.0)
- Guelph, Ont. 7.6 (7.2)
- London, Ont. 7.7 (8.0)
- Windsor, Ont. 8.6 (8.4)
- Barrie, Ont. 7.3 (7.2)
- Sudbury, Ont. 6.7 (6.2)
- Thunder Bay, Ont. 5.8 (5.8)
- Winnipeg 5.9 (5.7)
- Regina 3.4 (3.4)
- Saskatoon 4.2 (4.4)
- Calgary 5.4 (5.3)
- Edmonton 5.2 (4.8)
- Kelowna, B.C. 4.7 (5.3)
- Abbotsford, B.C. 7.5 (7.8)
- Vancouver 5.5 (5.7)
- Victoria 5.2 (5.1)