OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the economy created about 25,800 net new jobs last month, although all of them were part-time and the unemployment rate edged up to seven per cent as more Canadians went looking for work in May.
In terms of full-time work, the agency says the economy actually shed 29,100 jobs, a poor result that was papered over by the gain of 54,900 part-time jobs.
The net gain was in line with what the economists had forecast following April’s surprise 29,000 employment loss, although the consensus makes no distinction between part-time and full-time.
Even so, the May bounceback on net jobs only served to confirm the weakness of Canada’s labour market over the past year or so.
The agency notes that over the last 12 months, only 86,000 net new jobs have been created – or a mere 0.5 per cent increase – with all the growth part-time.
If there was a bright element to the report, it was that employers added 66,200 workers in May, as 40,400 left the self-employed class.
Regionally, the agency says the biggest draw of jobs came in resource-rich Alberta, which picked up 16,400 workers. Most other provinces showed little change in relationship to their population, except for Newfoundland and Labrador, which lost 4,100 jobs, all full-time.
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