Unemployment Rate Falls, But Few Jobs Are Added

It seems like good news: Canada’s unemployment rate dropped, to the lowest levels the country as seen since January 2009.

However, the 7.6 per cent numbers reached in November came at a cost.

“The headlines for the November job report were slightly above expectations but behind the scenes the economy continues to show weakness,” 680News Senior Business Editor Mike Eppel explained.

“All of the jobs that were created were part-time and the manufacturing sector lost 28,000 jobs last month. A lot of young Canadians dropped out of the labour force last month and that was the primary reason why the unemployment rate dropped down to 7.6 per cent,” he continued.

In fact, there were 11,500 fewer full-time jobs in November, offset by the 26,700 addition of part-time work.

Statistics Canada notes that in the past year, about 40 per cent of the 318,000 new jobs created by the economy have been part-time.

But jobs were created in health care, retail, and wholesale trade.

Ontario did slightly better than the rest of the country. Canada’s most populous province picked up 31,200 new workers, mostly full-time and all in the services sector. That helped push the jobless rate down four-tenths of a point to 8.2 per cent, also the lowest since January 2009.

With files from The Canadian Press.