Canada unexpectedly shed jobs for the second month in a row in July and the jobless rate ticked higher, as full-time employment plunged by the most in almost five years.
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The country’s unemployment rate climbed to 6.9% from 6.8% in the previous month, matching market expectations. Even as Bank of Canada has repeated time and again that the factory sector will spur a broader economic recovery, manufacturing jobs have been trending lower since the start of 2016 and have struggled to bounce back consistently pointing to slack of demand.
A consensus of economists had predicted the country to add 10,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to move up to 6.9 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters.
Statistics Canada says the city’s jobless rate was 6.2% last month, down from 6.4% the month before. That followed a drop in full-time work of 40,100 in the previous month.
The latest jobs report is far worse than analysts expected. On an annual basis, Canada has on average added almost 6,000 net jobs a month. The number of people who were unemployed and looking for work increased by 400 to 17,700, it said.
The survey also says paid employee positions fell by 28,400 last month, compared to a decline of 2,700 in self-employed work.
Unemployment in Guelph fell from 5.5 per cent to 5.3 per cent, while the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula region posted its fourth straight decline, with unemployment in July sitting at 4.2 per cent.
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– July Canadian employment falls by -31.2K, significantly below expecations of a gain of +10.0K. Meanwhile, women sustained the biggest hit when it came to full-time job losses, accounting for more than 80% of the jobs shed in that category.
