Canadian economy lost 4,700 jobs in October as unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7%

The unemployment rate rose to 6.7 per cent in October, as Statistics Canada says more people were looking for work.

That figure is up from 6.5 per cent in September and came alongside a loss of 4,700 jobs.

The loss of jobs in October follows big back-to-back job losses in August and September, when the Canadian economy shed more than 100,000 roles cumulatively over two months.

Economists polled by Reuters ahead of the release expected a gain of 13,600 jobs for October and for the unemployment rate to remain unchanged.

Canadian economy lost 68,000 jobs in September, marking second straight month of surprise declines

CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham says the trend of job losses in recent months suggests there’s some slack in the Canadian economy.

“While the Canadian Labour Force Survey is notoriously volatile, three monthly declines in a row is a trend that is hard to ignore,” Grantham wrote in a note to investors.

Private sector employment fell by 53,000 positions in October, marking the first decline in the segment since February. On the flip side, the number of public employees — which had been in decline for four months in a row — rose by 50,000.

On a year-over-year basis, private sector jobs are still up while the public sector is down, according to Statistics Canada.

Unemployment among the core aged workforce — those 25 to 54 years old — held steady.

But unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 rose by 0.7 percentage points, to 13.7 per cent.

Young workers have faced a generally tough labour market in recent years, but there had been little change in the jobless rate for that age group over the summer.

Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate was higher for students compared with youth not attending school.

Employment in the wholesale and retail trade industry has trended down over the past year and the sector led losses in October, shedding 29,000 roles. Transportation and warehousing and food and accommodation also posted losses last month, offset by some gains in construction and education.

Statistics Canada said the layoff rate — the proportion of people employed in September who were laid off by October — was “virtually unchanged” compared with a year earlier at 0.7 per cent.

Average hourly wages rose 2.2 per cent annually in October, edging down from 2.3 per cent in September.

Alberta and British Columbia both saw big swings in job numbers. Alberta shed 24,000 jobs, wiping out the previous month’s gain of about the same number of roles, and unemployment rose to 7.3 per cent. B.C. added 12,000 jobs after losses in September.

 The October job figures come a little over a week after the Bank of Canada delivered its first interest rate hike in more than three years. Officials at the central bank said at the time that resilience in the economy and fears inflation could spread justified raising the policy rate by a quarter point to 2.5 per cent.