{"id":116655,"date":"2025-09-05T15:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116655\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T15:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:53:07","slug":"canadian-economy-bled-66000-jobs-in-august-as-unemployment-rate-at-its-highest-since-pandemic-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/116655\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian economy bled 66,000 jobs in August as unemployment rate at its highest since ‘pandemic days’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada’s unemployment rate reached nearly its highest point since 2016 as the economy shed\u00a066,000 jobs in August, according to new data from Statistics Canada.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points in August\u00a0to 7.1 per cent, a level last seen in May 2016 if the COVID-19 years of\u00a02020 and 2021 were excluded, the data agency said.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate,\u00a0or the number of people unemployed out of\u00a0the total population, has been rising consistently this year, up from a 6.6 per cent rate in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/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

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

Employment fell across a number of industries, including some hit by tariffs.\u00a0In particular, the scientific and technical services sector lost 26,000 jobs, while transportation and warehousing dropped 23,000 and manufacturing bled 19,000.<\/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

This comes after the economy lost a total of 41,000 jobs last month.<\/p>\n

BMO chief economist Douglas Porter\u00a0says that, plainly, today’s news is not good.<\/p>\n

“Suffice it to say that this was worse than expected, and arguably the weakest jobs report since the pandemic days,” Porter said in a note.<\/p>\n

He says the losses in tariff-exposed sectors show the impact of the trade war. 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

The central bank will announce its next interest rate decision on Sept. 17.<\/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?: \"\"<\/p>\n

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

A report by Desjardins Thursday\u00a0argued\u00a0the rise of gig work, artificial intelligence and rapid population growth were among the factors\u00a0souring job prospects for Canada’s youngest workers.<\/p>\n

Much of the current employment struggles for youth\u00a0traces back to the COVID-19 pandemic recovery, LJ Valencia, an author\u00a0of the Desjardins report, said. At a time when businesses were hungry for labour,\u00a0Ottawa ramped up the inflow of foreign workers and loosened restrictions on international students to meet demand.<\/p>\n

“Job opportunities are declining, because the economy can’t keep up with this state of population growth,” he said.<\/p>\n

The rise of the gig economy \u2014\u00a0app-based and often precarious work\u00a0\u2014 also often limits the participation of younger people, as some apps\u00a0require users to be at least 18,\u00a0effectively shutting out anyone younger.<\/p>\n

Desjardins\u00a0also cites a Stanford University study published last week that found while core-working-age U.S. employees have so far faced minimal job disruption from AI, youth are starting to see employment losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada’s unemployment rate reached nearly its highest point since 2016 as the economy shed\u00a066,000 jobs in August, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[84,1371,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-116655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}