Canada’s job market holds steady in October

Canada’s unemployment rate continues to fall, dropping 0.2 percentage points to 6.7 per cent last month.

Statistics Canada says the country added more than 31,000 jobs in October.

This comes after employment numbers returned to pre-pandemic levels in September.

The gains are primarily in the retail sector, which offset declines in accommodation and food services.

Retail trade added 72,000 jobs in October that Statistics Canada notes pushed the industry back to its pre-pandemic levels for the first time since March.

The statistics agency also notes a decline in self-employment, but suggests some of those moved to more permanent and in-demand jobs like in the professional, scientific and technical services sector.

Statistics Canada also says the ranks of Canada’s long-term unemployed, those who have been out of work for six months or more, was little changed in October at almost 380,000.

Leah Nord, senior director of workforce strategies for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, says October’s jobs report points to the uphill climb that remains before the labour market fully heals from COVID-19

She notes that there are almost 900,000 job vacancies that need to be filled, adding that task is going to be more difficult than recovering the three million jobs lost at the onset of the pandemic, which the country achieved in September.

“The fact is the hard part begins now,” she says in a statement.

“Talent is an issue in every sector, at every level of the value chain, in every part of the country, and there’s no silver-bullet-fix at hand.”

Statistics Canada says the unemployment rate would have been 8.7 per cent in October, down from 8.9 per cent in September, had it not included in calculations Canadians who wanted to work but didn’t search for a job.