Canada’s labour market added a net 50,500 jobs in November while the unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 6.8 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data released on Friday. The unemployment rate is now at the highest level since Jan. 2017, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic, and has risen 1.7 percentage points since April of last year.
The jump in the unemployment rate came as the number of unemployed people, either those looking for work or on temporary layoff, increased by 87,000 in November. The data agency said that the number of unemployed people is up 22.2 per cent on a year-over-year basis, to a total of 1.5 million.
The jobs gain, which was nearly double what economists expected, was driven by an increase in full-time work. Economists had expected a job gain of 27,500, according to consensus estimates published by BMO Capital Markets. BMO economists had expected a gain of 20,000 jobs in November, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 6.6 per cent.
In October, Canada’s labour market added a net 14,500 jobs, falling short of economist expectations, while the unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent.
Alicja Siekierska is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow her on Twitter @alicjawithaj.
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