Canada’s unemployment rate has just reached a new low

The most recent figures from Statistics Canada, which were made public on Friday, indicated this decline, which marks the fourth straight record low for the jobless rate in the nation. For the second month in a row, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 6.8%, a new low.Seasonally adjusted unemployment rates include people who are not in the labor market but wish to work.

Because fewer people were actively looking for jobs in June, Canada’s unemployment rate kept going down and hit a new record low of 4.9 percent.

It is interesting to note that the employment rate in Canada also decreased in June, falling by 0.2%. This was the first loss of this kind witnessed since January of this year. According to Statistics Canada, the decline may “almost exclusively be attributed to a fall among employees aged 55 and older.” This is the first time that older employees have suffered a fall in employment since April 2021, and it was noticed mostly among males aged 55 to 64. According to the findings of the most recent study, employees over the age of 60 are more likely to be working because they have no other option but to do so.

Employment levels for people aged 25 to 54 showed no change among both men and women, holding at or slightly below the record highs reached during the spring. These levels were seen during the spring. Even among employees aged 15 to 24, the employment rate did not change and remained near to the all-time high set in April 2019, which was established before the epidemic. Employment rates among students remain higher than they were before the pandemic, and Statistics Canada notes that “a notable part of this increase is attributable to female students aged 20 to 24, more than three-quarters of whom were employed in June.” This shows that this age group is responsible for a big part of the improvement.

In June, the percentage of people working full time increased by 0.8%, while the percentage of people working part time because they are unable to find full-time work continued to fall, reaching a new record low of 14.4% in June. Involuntary part-time work is the rate of part-timers who are unable to find full-time jobs. This percentage was 19.4% in February 2020, the month before the epidemic began.

The number of people working for themselves decreased as well in June, falling by 59,000 employees, or 2.2%. This wiped off the majority of the gain in the number of people working for themselves that had been witnessed since October 2021. Additionally, as a result of this, there are now fewer people working independently than there were before COVID.

A notable 11.3 percentage point drop was seen in long-term unemployment between the months of May and June. Long-term unemployment is defined as people who have been consistently without work for 27 weeks or more. 21.3% of the people in this category gave up their search for employment, while 9.4 percent found jobs.

In June, employment rates in the sector that produces goods increased by 0.5%, while employment rates in the sector that produces services saw a decrease of 0.5 percent in the same month. In terms of the specific industries that are gaining and losing jobs, The number of construction workers went up by 1.5%, with most of that growth happening in the province of Ontario. The increase in construction employment, which came to a total of 23,000 new employees, compensated for losses that were witnessed in the prior two months. Construction jobs are now 8% higher than they were a year ago, making it one of the industries with the fastest year-over-year employment growth.

Wage growth is continuing to quicken as a result of quickly rising inflation and labor shortages, which are pressuring businesses to make their available positions more desirable to potential employees. The typical hourly rate for workers is now $31.24, a 5.2% increase over the previous year’s level. The majority of these gains were driven by non-unionized workers, who saw a 6.1% boost in pay compared to a 3.7% increase for unionized workers.

Source: https://storeys.com/canada-unemployment-rate-record-low-june-2022/