London-St. Thomas jobless rate rises to 6.2%, 300 jobs lost in May

A month after the London-St. Thomas jobless rate fell to its lowest level in a decade, it has gone back up.

Statistics Canada says the London-St. Thomas region lost 300 jobs in May, pushing the jobless rate up to 6.2 per cent.

The rate fell to 5.7 per cent in April, the first time it had fallen below six per cent since January of 2016.

In addition to the 300 jobs that were lost, the labour force grew by 1,000 while an extra 700 people started claiming unemployment.

Canada’s labour market was surprisingly strong last month, when 77,000 full-time positions were created.

As a result of the full-time work, Statistics Canada says 54,500 net new jobs were gained overall, far more than expected.

The national unemployment rate edged up to 6.6 per cent, however, as more people entered the job market.

Compared with 12 months earlier, there were 317,000 more people employed, mostly the result of increases in full-time work.

By province, the agency says Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec saw the biggest job gains last month.

In Ontario, employment increased by 20,000 in May, the result of additional employment among youth aged 15 to 24. The overall unemployment rate in Ontario rose by 0.7 percentage points to 6.5 per cent as more people searched for work.

Adjusted to the concepts used in the United States, the unemployment rate in Canada was 5.6 per cent in May, compared with 4.3 per cent in the United States. In the 12 months to May 2017, the unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage points in Canada and by 0.4 percentage points in the Unites States.