Greater Sudbury's jobs picture brightened last month, Statistics Canada reported Friday, with the city adding 1,300 jobs and the city's unemployment rate dropping to 7.8 per cent.
That compares to 8.1 per cent the month before. The drop would have been larger if there wasn't a corresponding increase in the size of the labour force, which is an estimate of the number of people looking for work. There were 89,700 people looking for work in August, compared to 88,600 in July.
Last year at this time, unemployment was 7.2 per cent and the labour force was 89,200.
Employment in Ontario was little changed, StatsCan said. In August, the unemployment rate increased 0.3 percentage points to 6.7 per cent, as more people searched for work.
Across Canada, the economy created 26,200 net new jobs in the month compared with a loss of 31,200 in the previous month.
However, even with the increase in the number of jobs, the unemployment rate crept up to 7.0 per cent compared with 6.9 per cent in July as more people entered the labour force and started looking for work.
Economists had expected a gain a 15,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.9 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters.
The jobs numbers have been volatile in recent months.
The overall increase in the number of jobs in August was due to a gain of 52,200 full-time jobs, nearly offsetting a loss of 71,400 full-time positions in July. The number of part-time jobs in August fell by 26,000 compared with a gain of 40,200 the previous month.
The number of jobs rose in Quebec by 22,000 in August as its unemployment rate edged up to 7.1 per cent from 7.0 per cent, while Newfoundland and Labrador gained 4,000 jobs in the month as its unemployment rate moved down to 12.3 per cent from 12.8 per cent. New Brunswick lost 3,000 jobs, with its unemployment rate dropping to 9.4 per cent from 9.7 per cent.
The number of public sector employees jumped 57,000 in August, while the number of private sector jobs increased 8,300. The number of self-employed workers slipped by 39,100.
The jobs report follows the Bank of Canada's decision earlier this week to keep its key interest rate target on hold at 0.5 per cent where it has been for more than a year.
In making its decision, the central bank raised concern about the strength of the Canadian economic recovery, noting that a drop in exports earlier this year was larger and more broad-based than expected.
However, the Bank of Canada says it still expects a "substantial rebound" in the economy in the second half of the year.
– Files from The Canadian Press
