Wire · Echonomia Post
OTTAWA — The previously hot labour market stalled out to end the summer with a loss of 42,000 jobs in August, Statistics Canada said Friday. The unemployment rate held steady at 6.4 per cent last month, matching expectations for no change. August’s losses fell short of economists’ expectations for a gain of 15,000 positions, ending a hot streak of 181,000 jobs added from April through July. The unemployment rate had dropped by half a percentage point over the previous three months.
StatCan reported little change in the private sector and self-employment in August, but the public sector shed 20,000 positions for the third straight month. The business, building, and other support services sector led declines, followed by public administration, natural resources, and utilities. The manufacturing industry was hit hard by U.S. tariffs but showed a surprising gain of 22,000 jobs in August.
The layoff rate in August was 0.8 per cent, down from 1.0 per cent a year ago and averaging 0.9 per cent over the three years before COVID-19. For industries reliant on U.S. export demand, the layoff rate was marginally higher over the past 12 months.
The annual increase in average hourly wages cooled to 2.0 per cent in August, down from 2.8 per cent in July and 3.3 per cent in June. The last time the annual wage increase was this low was November 2017.
Young workers aged 15 to 24 faced 19,000 job losses in August. Despite a tough end to the season, the summer jobs market was statistically better for youth than last year, with the jobless rate for students returning to school in the fall at 15.9 per cent from May to August this year—two percentage points lower than the same period in 2025.
Source: BNN Bloomberg
