While Canada’s employment rate has started to rebound, Greater Sudbury’s unemployment rate increased last month, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for that month.
Greater Sudbury’s unemployment rate hit 9.4 per cent for the month June, up from 8.4 per cent from May.
The survey shows Greater Sudbury lost 1,400 jobs in June, with 74,600 people employed. That’s down from 76,000 in May. There were 7,700 people unemployed in June, an increase over the 7,000 the month before.
However, Statistics Canada says the country’s economy added nearly one million jobs in June as businesses forced closed by the pandemic began to reopen.
The agency says 953,000 jobs were added last month, including 488,000 full-time and 465,000 part-time positions, and the the unemployment rate fell to 12.3 per cent in June after hitting a record-high of 13.7 per cent in May.
From February to April, 5.5 million Canadian workers were affected by the COVID-19 economic shutdown. This included a drop in employment of 3 million and a COVID-related increase in absences from work of 2.5 million.
By the week of June 14 to June 20, the number of workers affected by the COVID-19 economic shutdown was 3.1 million, a reduction since April of 43 per cent.
In Ontario, where the easing of COVID-19 restrictions began in late May and expanded on June 12, employment rose by 378,000 in June, the first increase since the COVID-19 economic shutdown. The unemployment rate declined 1.4 percentage points to 12.2 per cent as the number of people on temporary layoff declined.
The labour market shock resulting from the COVID-19 economic shutdown has had an unequal impact on different groups of Canadians.
In March and April, a disproportionate share of job loss was felt by youth, women and low-paid workers. LFS results from May and June indicate that these same groups face a longer path to labour market recovery than others.
The economic outlook released by the Liberal government Wednesday forecast the unemployment rate to be 9.8 per cent for the calendar year, dropping to 7.8 per cent next year based on forecasts by 13 private sector economists.
