Of the 66,000 jobs lost, they were largely in part-time\u00a0work. Reduced hiring and layoffs largely fuelled those numbers, Statistics Canada said, with the layoff rate rising to one\u00a0per cent in August, compared to 0.9 per cent at the same time last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This comes after the economy lost a total of 41,000 jobs last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n The figures are more dire than some economists had predicted \u2014 a Reuters poll ahead of the release predicted a gain of 10,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to rise to 7 per cent.<\/p>\n Statistics Canada says most of the jobs lost \u2014 some 60,000 \u2014 were part-time ones, while there was little change in the number of full-time jobs.\u00a0Most of the losses were also among workers\u00a0between 25 to 54 years old, with little change in youth employment, according to StatsCan.<\/p>\n Pedro Antunes, Chief Economist at The Conference Board of Canada, says the report overall is bad news.<\/p>\n He points out that while youth unemployment also remained high in August, that age group had previously made up more of the drag on jobs. But now, the losses in August were among the core age group in the workforce.<\/p>\n “There’s an awful lot of people here who have essentially lost their employment. It does generate uncertainty and a lot of angst in the labour market when these [kinds of] numbers come out,” Antunes told CBC News.<\/p>\n A critical metric, called the\u00a0participation rate, that shows how many people were economically\u00a0active\u00a0\u2014 either in jobs or actively looking for them\u00a0\u2014 was at 65.1 per cent,\u00a0also at its lowest since the pandemic.<\/p>\n Tariff-exposed sectors hit the hardest<\/p>\n Employment fell across a number of industries, especially\u00a0some of those most exposed to tariffs.<\/p>\n The transportation and warehousing sector lost 23,000 jobs and manufacturing bled 19,000.\u00a0The scientific and technical services sector also dropped\u00a026,000 jobs.<\/p>\n Geographically, Canada’s manufacturing hubs were also hit harder, with Windsor, Ont., reporting an unemployment rate of\u00a011.1 per cent and Oshawa, Ont., reporting a nine\u00a0per cent rate.<\/p>\n Persistent uncertainty around U.S. trade policy has kept\u00a0Canadian businesses on tenterhooks, leading to minimal hiring\u00a0and investment, affecting the job market and economic growth.<\/p>\n Construction, on the other hand, made gains, adding 17,000 new roles.<\/p>\n Chief economist\u00a0at BMO Capital Markets Douglas Porter\u00a0said the report was arguably the weakest since the pandemic days, with the “full effects”\u00a0of the uncertainty brought by the trade war landing on the economy.<\/p>\n “In some ways it’s almost textbook\u00a0\u2014\u00a0exactly the sectors you would expect to be affected by the trade war were some of the weakest,” Porter said, referencing big job losses in manufacturing and transportation.<\/p>\n He says the weak report could open the door to rate cuts by the Bank of Canada later this month, though with inflation remaining high, that factor hasn’t given them the “all clear.”<\/p>\n Still, Porter expects a rate cut when the central bank announces its next interest rate decision on Sept. 17.<\/p>\n The markets are betting on that, too.\u00a0Money markets were putting odds of a rate cut at\u00a0almost 92 per cent\u00a0after the jobs data, from 72 per cent earlier.<\/p>\n Across the border in the U.S., the labour market picture was also bleak. Unemployment rose in that country to 4.3 per cent\u00a0\u2014 a four-year high. Their economy also added a mere\u00a022,000 jobs, which was a substantial miss from the\u00a075,000 figure that economists polled by Reuters had been forecasting.<\/p>\n Youth unemployment holds steady<\/p>\n There was little change to employment for people between the ages of 15 and 24 in August, with youth unemployment staying high at\u00a014.5\u00a0per cent.<\/p>\n That’s a decline by 0.1 percentage points from the month before. July saw the highest unemployment rate<\/a> for that age group since September 2010 (again, outside of the pandemic years).\u00a0<\/p>\n WATCH |\u00a0How did the Gen Z job market get so bleak?: How did the Gen Z job market get so bleak?<\/p>\n Gen Z graduates between the ages of 15 and 24 are facing the highest unemployment rate the country has seen in decades, apart from the pandemic. CBC’s Paula Duhatschek breaks down what\u2019s behind the surge and what it could mean for a whole generation of Canadians.<\/p>\n The data paints a picture of a difficult summer for students looking for work. From May to August, the unemployment rate for students returning to school\u00a0in the fall was\u00a017.9 \u2014\u00a0per cent \u2014\u00a0the highest since summer of 2009.<\/p>\n Gen Z students and recent grads have previously told CBC News<\/a> about their struggles to find work, with some saying they’d applied to hundreds of jobs over a series of months with no success.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Employees](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/employees-at-work-on-the-production-line-at-an-auto-parts-manufacturing-plant-in-ontario.jpg\")
Employees work on the production line at the Martinrea auto parts manufacturing plant in Woodbridge, Ontario on Monday February 3, 2025. The manufacturing sector saw job losses in August, according to StatsCan. (Chris Young\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757092570_417_default.jpg\")
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