Job market extends recovery

The local and national job markets continue to recover with strong full-time gains

CANADA’S ECONOMY ADDED 245,800 jobs in August, a fourth-straight month of gains that has recouped nearly two thirds of employment losses from the pandemic, and locally, the London job market added nearly 7,000 new jobs in August, bringing down the region’s unemployment rate down by more than a percentage point.

According to figures released by Statistics Canada on Friday, the London area’s unemployment rate was at 9.3 per cent in August, down from 10.5 per cent in July. In June, the rate hit a 20-year high at 12.6 per cent.

In total, the London census metropolitan area, which also takes in Strathroy, St. Thomas and portions of Middlesex and Elgin County, added 6,900 new positions in August, helping boost the total number of people employed to 250,800.

The London region has added 18,100 jobs in the last two months, a number that also includes people who are returning to their jobs after being laid-off during the peak of the pandemic.

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Despite the positive figures, the local economy has yet to recoup all the jobs lost since the beginning of pandemic-induced shutdown in March, a figured that reached 30,000 in June.

Nationally, Canada’s economy added 245,800 jobs in August, a fourth-straight month of gains that has recouped nearly two thirds of employment losses from the pandemic.

The hiring lowered the national jobless rate to 10.2 per cent, from 10.9 per cent in July, and brings the number of jobs recovered since the height of the pandemic to 1.9 million. Canada lost 3 million jobs in March and April. Economists had forecast a 250,000 increase and an unemployment rate of 10.2 per cent in August.

While the initial quick recovery in Canada’s labour market is welcome, economists predict it will fade, with many of those initially displaced by the pandemic already back at work and the economy as open as it can be for now.