OTTAWA — The beforehand scorching labour market stalled out to finish the summer season with a loss of 42,000 jobs in August, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The unemployment charge held regular at 6.4 per cent final month, the company stated.
August’s losses fell wanting economists’ expectations for a achieve of 15,000 positions.
It places an finish to a scorching streak for the labour market that noticed 181,000 jobs added from April by way of July. The unemployment charge had dropped by half a proportion level over the earlier three months.
StatCan stated there was little change within the non-public sector and self-employment in August, however the public sector shed 20,000 positions in its third straight month of losses.
The enterprise, constructing and different help companies sector led declines, adopted by public administration, pure assets and utilities.
The manufacturing trade has been hit laborious by U.S. tariffs however the sector proved to be a shock pocket of power in August with a achieve of twenty-two,000 jobs.
August’s job figures solely partially seize impacts from a brand new wave of fifty per cent tariffs on about $28 billion price of Canadian items utilized by the USA mid-month.
StatCan stated the layoff charge – the proportion of people that have been unemployed as the results of a layoff between July and August – was 0.8 per cent in August. That charge stood at one per cent a 12 months in the past and averaged 0.9 per cent for a similar months within the three years earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
For industries reliant on export demand from the USA, StatCan stated the layoff charge was marginally increased over the previous 12 months when put next with different sectors.
The annual improve in common hourly wages cooled to 2 per cent in August, the company stated, down from 2.8 per cent in July and three.3 per cent in June. The final time the annual wage improve was that low was November 2017.
Younger staff aged 15 to 24 confronted 19,000 job losses in August. Regardless of a troublesome finish to the season, StatCan stated this previous summer season jobs market was statistically higher for youth than final 12 months.
On common, the jobless charge for college kids returning to high school within the fall stood at 15.9 per cent from Might to August this 12 months – two proportion factors decrease than the identical interval in 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Sept. 4, 2026.
