Canada’s employment holds steady for 3rd straight month

Employment also fell among older workers, particularly women aged 55 to 64, who saw a decline of 41,000 jobs (-2.6%), says Statistics Canada.

In contrast, core-aged men (25 to 54 years old) enjoyed a job increase of 48,000 positions (+0.7%), slightly offsetting the cumulative decline observed in May and June. However, year-over-year comparisons show a downward trend for both core-aged men and women, with employment rates dropping by 0.9 and 1.0 percentage points, respectively.

July proved challenging for returning students, whose employment rate plummeted to 51.3%, marking the lowest rate since July 1997, outside of the pandemic years, says Ottawa. The unemployment rate among returning students surged to 17.2%, the highest for July since 2009.

Recent immigrants also faced significant hurdles, with their unemployment rate rising 3.1 percentage points to 12.6% over the past year, with the most pronounced impact on recent immigrant youth, whose unemployment rate skyrocketed to 22.8%.

Comparing Canada and the US

The Canadian labour market continues to diverge from that of the United States, according to Statistics Canada. When adjusted to US concepts, Canada’s unemployment rate stood at 5.4% in July, 1.1 percentage points higher than the US rate of 4.3%.