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OTTAWA — After months of modest gains, Canada’s employment rate took a dive last month.

That’s according to the latest Labour Force Survey, released Friday by Statistics Canada , which saw Canada’s economy shed 42,000 jobs in August, dropping the country’s employment rate by 0.1 percentage points to 60.8%.

Months of promising employment gains were completely erased by the drop, leaving Canada’s national unemployment rate flat at 6.4%.

“While the overall unemployment rate was unchanged in August, it increased among core-aged men (+0.2 percentage points to 6.0%) and fell for core-aged women (-0.2 percentage points to 5.0%),” read an excerpt from Statistics Canada’s report.

“The unemployment rate was little changed for youth (12.9%) and people aged 55 and older (5.1%).”

Employment among youth between the ages of 15 and 24 fell by 0.7%, or 19,000 jobs, while employment among the core group of workers — 25 to 54 years of age — likewise fell by 16,000 jobs, or 0.1%.

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Ontario, Quebec hardest hit

The biggest blow came in the public sector, which saw 20,000 jobs lost in August.

Since May, government payrolls have shrunk by 78,000 workers, part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to reduce government spending and shrink the size of Canada’s morbidly obese public service.

It’s also bad news for those suffering long-term joblessness — nearly a quarter of those out of work have been looking for employment for over 27 weeks.

Central Canada bore the brunt of most of these job losses, with Quebec losing 19,000 jobs last month, while Ontario lost 18,000.

It wasn’t all bad news for Ontario, however, which saw an extra 14,000 jobs in the province’s manufacturing sector — a significant part of the 22,000 overall manufacturing jobs added across Canada last month.

Wage growth also saw a dramatic slowdown, with hourly pay growing by just 2% year-over-year to an average of $37.02.

That marks the slowest rate of wage growth in Canada in nearly a decade, excluding the pandemic.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume