Meanwhile, average hourly wages were up 5% to $35.16 on a year-over-year basis, down slightly from the previous month’s annualized rate of 5.2% (not seasonally adjusted).
The stats also show that gains of 66,000 in part-time work were offset by a decline of 44,000 for full-time jobs.
Gains were concentrated in the core working age group (men and women) with 25-54-year-olds seeing a 20,000 increase in August. Looking at the previous 12 months, men in this age group gained 207,000 jobs while women gained 115,000. For both younger and older Canadians there was little change in employment growth.
With rise in unemployment was mostly in core-aged and older men, with other demographic groups largely unchanged, although returning students found employment harder to find over the summer.
Economists’ reaction
Some of Canada’s big bank economists gave their reaction to the jobs data.