Article source: ConstructConnect
Statistics Canada’s August Labour Force Survey report was a ‘downer’. It set out a third straight month of total jobs count decline. In August, the employment step back was -40,000 jobs. In the two preceding months of July and June, the retreats were -30,000 and -43,000 respectively.
The current year’s monthly average of total jobs-count change through August has been only +19,000. Last year, for the first eight months, the comparable figure was considerably better at +57,000.
Canada’s seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate has risen to 5.4% from 4.9% in July. In August a year ago, it had been 7.1%.
The not seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment rate now sits at 6.0%. But the NSA U rate calculated according to the same strict rules about who is truly out of work as are adopted in the U.S., remained tight. At 4.2%, it wasn’t far off America’s figure of 3.8%.
