Canada adds over 240K jobs in August, unemployment rate declines

Sep 4 2020, 4:21 pm

Canada’s unemployment rate has continued to plummet as the country’s job force saw an increase of 246,000 jobs in August.

According to Statistics Canada, employment rose by 1.4% in August compared to 2.4% in July.

The unemployment rate fell 0.7 percentage points to 10.2% in August.

With the increase in the last few months, it has brought employment up -5.7% since before COVID-19 February numbers.

Canadians who were employed but had worked less than half their usual hours fell by 259,000, a decrease of 14.6% in August, making it a total of COVID-related absences from work at 713,000 compared to February, according to StatsCan.

With opportunities to work from home, Canadians with their usual hours fell by nearly 300,000 compared to July’s numbers.

The number of Canadians working at locations besides their home jumped up by almost 400,000.

“All of the employment increase in August was in full-time work, which rose by 206,000 (+1.4%), while the number of part-time workers was little changed,” said StatsCan.

As of the week of August 9 to 15, the total number of Canadian workers affected by the COVID-19 economic shutdown stood at 1.8 million, according to the report.

Employment in Ontario rose by 142,000 in August (+2.0%), which StatsCan said is nearly all in full-time work, while the unemployment rate fell by 0.7 percentage points to 10.6%.

BC reported the largest increase, up 15,000 (+0.6%). StatsCan said employment reached 94.1% of its February level and the unemployment rate fell to 10.7%.

“While employment in Alberta was little changed, the unemployment rate declined by a full percentage point to 11.8% as fewer people looked for work,” stated the report.

And in Quebec, employment increased by 54,000 (+1.3%) in August, “building on gains of 576,000 over the previous three months, and bringing employment in the province to within 95.7% of its pre-COVID level.”

Karen DoradeaKaren Doradea

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