BC added 70,000 jobs in July: Statistics Canada
The number of employed British Columbians increased by 70,000 (+3.0%) in July, reaching 93.5% of the February employment level, according to new figures from Statistics Canada released on Friday.
According to the agency, the proportion of people in the province who were employed but worked less than half of their usual hours was 12% in July, down from 14.6% in June. The unemployment rate fell by 1.9 percentage points to 11.1%.
In the Vancouver area, employment increased by 48,000 (+3.8%) to reach 89.9% of the February level, a degree of recovery lower than the province as a whole.
July saw a large increase, mostly due to part-time employment at 11.3% compared to full-time work at 0.5%.
According to Statistics Canada, part-time work has now inched closer to where the country was before COVID-19 struck, at -5.0%, versus full-time work at -7.5%
Overall, the increase compared to that of June is significantly less as July reported 2.4% versus 5.8% the month before.
The unemployment rate in July fell by 1.4% since June to 10.9% and significantly less than that of May which, according to Statistics Canada, had a record high of 13.7%.
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The number of Canadians who were employed but worked less than half their usual hours, likely due to COVID-19, also fell by 412,000 in July.
As for those working from home, the number or people fell by 400,000 but is still significantly higher compared to those who usually have a work-from-home routine.
“By the week of July 12 to July 18, the total number of affected workers stood at 2.3 million, a reduction since April of 58.0%,” reads the Statistics Canada report.
About 5.5 million Canadians in the workforce were affected by the shutdown as 3.0 million saw a loss of employment and 2.5 million in absences from work, according to Stats Can.
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