OTTAWA: The Canadian economy lost tens of thousands of jobs in July, sending the share of people employed to an eight-month low, data showed on Friday (Aug 8), as the labour market gave back gains from the previous month.
The economy shed 40,800 jobs in July, compared with a net addition of 83,000 jobs in June, taking the employment rate, the percentage of people employed out of the total working-age population, to 60.7 per cent, Statistics Canada said.
The unemployment rate held steady at a multi-year high of 6.9 per cent.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a gain of 13,500 jobs and a small uptick in the unemployment rate to 7 per cent.
“Canada’s labour market snapped back to reality in July,” said Michael Davenport, senior economist at Oxford Economics.
TARIFFS HIT MANUFACTURING
US President Donald Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and autos have hit the manufacturing sector hard, reducing hiring intentions, the Bank of Canada has previously said.
The number of people employed in manufacturing fell by nearly 10,000 in July from a year earlier as sectors linked to steel, aluminium and autos scaled back hiring and carried out layoffs.
Marty Warren, national director of the United Steelworkers in Canada, told Reuters that about 1,000 members have been laid off.
Oxford Economics’ Davenport expects more layoffs in the coming months, forecasting about 140,000 job losses and an unemployment rate rising to the mid-7 per cent range later this year.
Employment in some sectors has remained resilient despite tariffs, the data showed. Overall, there has been little net employment growth since the start of the year, while the layoff rate was virtually unchanged at 1.1 per cent in July compared with the same month a year earlier.
