For the first time since April, when COVID-19 was beginning to make its presence felt and restrictions to fight the virus were being put in place, the Canadian economy has suffered a decline in jobs.
Statistics Canada released its Labour Force Survey for December today.
It showed the economy lost 63,000 jobs and the unemployment rate moving up slightly–to 8.6 per cent from 8.5 per cent.
It was 5.6 per cent last February, before COVID-19, and peaked at 13.7 in May.
#Employment fell by 63,000 (-0.3%) in December—the first decline since April. The unemployment rate was 8.6%, essentially unchanged from the 8.5% recorded in November. https://t.co/ellp6hVAkV #CdnEcon pic.twitter.com/lcdOuzTm8u
— Statistics Canada (@StatCan_eng) January 8, 2021
The decline ended a streak of monthly job gains that began in May when restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the virus began to ease.
The data showed that full-time employment rose in December rose by 36,500, but part-time jobs fell by 99,000.
As well, StatsCan reported that total hours worked were down for the first time since April–falling 0.3 per cent.
Signs of a slowdown surfaced in November when the economy added 62,000 jobs, the lowest total since the labour market recovery began in May.
In February, more than 19.1 million Canadians aged 15 or over had some sort of job, but Canada lost more than a million jobs in March and another two million in April.
As of December, there were still 636,000 fewer people with a job than there were in February, and an additional 448,000 people were working with fewer hours than they had before the pandemic struck.
With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press
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