Canada's Unemployment Rate Ticks Up to 6.2 Percent

The unemployment rate has trended up since April 2023, rising 1.1 percentage points over the period, the national statistical agency said.

According to the agency, people are facing greater difficulties finding work in the current labour market. There were 1.4 million unemployed people in May, an increase of 28,000, or 2.1 percent, from the previous month. Of those who were unemployed in April, just under one-quarter had transitioned to employment in May which was lower than the pre-pandemic average for the same months in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Long-term unemployment, the proportion of those who had been continuously unemployed for 27 weeks or more, stood at 18.2 percent in May, up from a recent low of 13.2 percent in August 2023, the agency said.

Meanwhile, employment was little changed in May and the employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 61.3 percent, Statistics Canada said.

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