The London-St. Thomas jobless rate fell for the third straight month in April according to Statistics Canada.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.8 per cent in April, down from 5 per cent the month before. The reason for the decline isn’t a good one, London lost 3,100 jobs last month, that coincides with a drop in the overall labour force and the number of people claiming unemployment.
3,800 people left the labour market while 700 fewer people claimed unemployment.
London’s participation rate continued to struggle, it fell to 58.6 per cent in April and is now the second worst in the entire country.
Only Saguenay, Quebec has a participation rate lower than London.
Nationally, the unemployment rate declined to 5.7 per cent. Statistics Canada says the economy added a record 106,500 jobs in April.
Ontario added 47,000 jobs in April, thanks largely due to gains in part-time work. Despite the added jobs, the unemployment rate held steady at 6 per cent as more people entered the labour market.
Adjusted to US concepts, the unemployment rate in Canada was 4.7 per cent in April, compared with 3.6 per cent in the United States. On a year-over-year basis, the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage points in Canada and by 0.3 percentage points in the United States.