EDMONTON – The month of October saw Canada’s job market take one of the biggest hits in years.
Numbers came out on Friday, showing that jobs are down nationwide, after a promising showing in the month of September.
It’s believed that 54,000 jobs were lost across Canada last month, leading to the largest employment decline since the recession.
Stats Canada says the country’s unemployment rate is up two notches to 7.3%, that’s the biggest loss in two and a half years.
Most of the jobs were lost in the manufacturing and construction trades, and primarily in Ontario, although layoffs are also occuring in the Maritimes, at a popular Canadian brewery.
New Brunswick-based Moosehead Breweries will be letting go a number of head office employees. The exact number of layoffs is yet to be announced.
The company says the cutbacks are in response to the strong Canadian dollar.
But it’s not it’s not all doom and gloom, several provinces, including Alberta, saw a decrease in unemployment.
In fact behind Saskatchewan, Alberta’s unemployment rate is the lowest in the country.
From September to October, there was a 0.3% drop. That means 7,500 more people are working here in Alberta.
In Edmonton there was a point one percent increase in jobs, from 5.3% in September, to 5.4% percent in October.
Even more jobs were created in Calgary. Unemployment in that city dropped from 5.9% to 5.6%.
The Canadian dollar fell more than a cent on Friday morning in the wake of the jobs report, a bigger drop than many experts predicted.
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