Canada's economy lost a net 68,300 jobs in September, sharply missing economists' expectations and pushing the unemployment rate to 6.5% from 6.4% in August.
Statistics Canada reported the decline as 68,000 after rounding, or 0.3% of employment. Reuters said economists it polled had expected a gain of 9,200 jobs. September followed a loss of 41,700 positions in August, marking a second consecutive monthly decline.
Public-sector and youth employment took the biggest hits
Full-time employment fell by 35,000 and part-time work by 33,000. Public-sector employment dropped by 70,000, its fourth straight monthly decline, while private-sector employment was little changed.
The losses were concentrated among people ages 15 to 24, whose employment fell by 48,000, and women ages 25 to 54, down 28,000. Educational services shed 35,000 jobs, health care and social assistance lost 23,000, and manufacturing declined by 13,000. Alberta added 23,000 jobs, but that was outweighed by losses led by Quebec and British Columbia.
Participation hits a non-pandemic low
The labor force participation rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 64.8%, its lowest level since December 1997 outside the pandemic year of 2020. Statistics Canada said population aging largely explains the longer-term decline in participation.
Average hourly wages rose 2.3% from a year earlier to $37.64, up from 2% annual growth in August. Reuters reported that Canada has now lost a net 41,200 jobs in 2026, compared with a gain of 211,300 over the same period last year.
The figures come from Statistics Canada's monthly Labour Force Survey, whose September reference week ran from Sept. 13 to Sept. 19. As with any sample survey, monthly estimates are subject to sampling variability.
