Canada’s job market fell by 200,000 in January

Statistics Canada reports the economy took a significant hit last month, blamed in part on restrictions placed amid the Omicron variant spread.

That’s up 0.5 per cent compared to December, when Canada hit its lowest unemployment rate since the start of 2020.

Due to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the unemployment rate jumped to 6.5 per cent.

The decrease marks the largest drop since January 2021, when the economy shed 207,800 jobs.

Accommodation and food services was the hardest-hit industry, and women and young people were the most affected.

“There was no change in total employment for men or women aged 55 and older in January,” Statistics Canada wrote in its report Friday.

Statistics Canada says the bulk of the job losses were in Ontario and Quebec, which implemented the strictest measures in the country as the COVID-19 variant began to spread in December.

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Governments reintroduced capacity limits and closures for workplaces such as restaurants and gym over the holidays in many provinces, but by the end of January many restrictions had been eased.

Job numbers by province & territory

• Newfoundland and Labrador rose to 12.8 per cent
• Prince Edward Island is the highest in the country at 9.6 per cent
• Nova Scotia is at 7.0 per cent
• New Brunswick now sits at 8.5 per cent
• Quebec increased to 5.4 per cent
• Ontario increased by 1.2 percentage points to 7.3 per cent in January
• Manitoba 5.1 per cent (5.3)
• Saskatchewan actually saw more people working, its rate is at 5.5 per cent
• Alberta 7.2 per cent (7.5)
• British Columbia was among the few provinces which didn’t see a significant rise, the rate dropped 0.3 points and is at 5.1 per cent

“Absences from work due to illness or disability—that is, for any short or long term health-related reason—tend to follow a seasonal pattern, and typically peak in the winter. However, as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spread across the country, absences due to illness or disability reached record highs in January,” Statistics Canada said.

About 10 per cent of employees were absent from work for a part of or all of January due to illness or disability. That is way higher than what employers typically see over the January month in previous years, however is still not at the same rate as the country saw in March 2020, during the onset of the pandemic, when 8.1 per cent of employees were absent from work.