According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate increased in August 2022 in Canada to 5.4%. This is the first increase in seven months. This rate was lower than that recorded in February 2020 before the pandemic (5.7%).
Source: Statistics Canada
Employment fell by 40,000 (0.2%), bringing the cumulative decline since May 2022 to 114,000 (-0.6%). The decline observed since May occurred mainly in full-time employment ( -94,000 ; -0.6 %).
Source: Statistics Canada
Quebec was the only province to post an employment increase in August (+27,000; +0.6%).
Employee average hourly earnings rose 5.4% (+$1.60 to $31.33) year-over-year in August, compared to increases of 5.2% in June and July ( unadjusted data).
The activity rate — the proportion of the population in employment or looking for work — stood at (64.8%) in August, up 0.1 percentage point from July (64. 7%).
The employment rate stood at 61.3% in August 2022, down 0.3 percentage points from the rate of 61.6 in July 2022.
Employment in occupations that usually require a high school diploma or less was down 267,000 ( -3.8 %) in August, while the number of Canadians working in jobs that usually require a university education was up of 700,000 (+18.0%).
The number of public sector employees fell in August (-28,000; -0.6%), while the number of private sector employees and the number of self-employed workers remained stable.
The adjusted unemployment rate — which includes people who wanted a job but did not look for one — rose 0.5 percentage points to 7.3% in August, due to the increase in the number of unemployed.
As of August, 307,000 Canadians had left their jobs to retire at some point in the past year, up from 233,000 a year earlier and up from 273,000 in August 2019 (unadjusted data) .
As of June 2022, for the first time since data from the Job Vacancy and Earnings Survey began to be released in 2015, there were fewer people unemployed (989,000) than vacancies ( 1,038,000) (data not seasonally adjusted).
Source: Statistics Canada
HISTORICAL
September 2021 to August 2022
Employment in the last 12 months
September 2021 to August 2022
Employment in the last 12 months
2010 to 2022
Unemployment rate since the start of the pandemic from January 2019 to August 2022
Unemployment rate since 1976 in Canada
Definition
The employment rate represents the number of employed persons expressed as a percentage of the population aged 15 and over. The employment rate of a particular group (eg young people aged 15-24) is the number of employed persons in that group expressed as a percentage of the population in that same group.
The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed expressed as a percentage of the active population (employed and unemployed).
The activity rate is the number of employed and unemployed persons expressed as a percentage of the population aged 15 and over.
Full-time employment includes people who usually work 30 hours or more per week at their main or only job.
Part-time employment includes people who usually work less than 30 hours per week at their main or only job.
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