schema:articleBody
| - The coronavirus-hit Canadian economy created 419,000 jobs in July, a higher-than-predicted increase of 2.4 percent, while unemployment continued to fall to 10.9 percent, the national statistics institute said Friday. The unemployment rate drop of 1.4 percentage points marked the second month in a row that it has fallen, after reaching an all-time high in May of 13.7 percent. It stood at 5.6 percent in February, before lockdown restrictions implemented in an attempt to contain COVID-19 hit the economy. "Despite this decrease, almost 2.2 million Canadians were unemployed in July, nearly twice as many (+92.6%) as in February (1.1 million)," Statistics Canada said in a statement, tempering the positive news. Job creation in July was mainly driven by part-time work -- more than 345,000 jobs, compared with over 73,000 full-time jobs. More work was created in the service sector than in the goods sector. Employment also rose faster among women -- by 3.4 percent, or 275,000 jobs -- than men, although with women disproportionately losing their jobs in March it meant that employment in July was still closer to its pre-shutdown level for men than for women. The figures are higher than analysts' forecasts, which averaged 390,000 new jobs after the Canadian economy created nearly one million jobs in June. "The pace of increase in employment slowed in July relative to the prior month, and that's likely to become a trend as the pace of easing in restrictions also slows down and the number of Canadians on temporary layoff falls," noted Royce Mendes, analyst at CIBC. The number of Canadians working at home also continued to decline by about 400,000, the same as the previous month. Quebec, which on Friday accounted for more than half of the 118,500 cases of coronavirus in Canada, recorded a 1.2 point drop in its unemployment rate to 9.5 percent. ast/et/st/ft
|