London-area loses 3,600 jobs, capping difficult summer for workers

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The London region shed about 3,600 jobs in August, marking the third consecutive month of job losses locally, the latest labour market snapshot shows.

In total, the region has lost 7,300 positions since June, Statistics Canada reported Friday, capping what has been a difficult summer for job seekers across the country.

Despite August’s employment decline, London’s jobless rate was unchanged last month at 6.5 per cent, the result of fewer people looking for work.

London’s poor performance over the summer is in line with projections made earlier this year by the Conference Board of Canada, an economic think tank. After being among the top-performing local economies in 2023, the board projected 2024 would be a year marked by slower growth amid challenging economic conditions, including higher interest rates that only recently began to come down.

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London’s labour market update mirrored sluggish results seen both provincially and nationally.

Ontario, for instance, saw its unemployment rate increase to 7.1 per cent from July’s 6.7 per cent after the province only created 22,000 new jobs last month, but more people joined the labour market.

Most major centres across the country also saw their jobless rates rise last month, with the biggest increases reported in Windsor (+3.2 percentage points to 9.2 per cent), Oshawa (+2.5 percentage points to 7.8 per cent) and Edmonton (+2.4 percentage points to 8.6%).

Nationally, the jobless rate went up to 6.6 per cent in August after all the job gains made in part-time work – about 66,000 new jobs – were offset by the loss of 44,000 full-time positions, Statistics Canada said.

Excluding the pandemic years, Canada’s 6.6 per cent unemployment rate is the highest it’s been since May 2017, with the number of unemployed people reaching 1.5 million last month.

jjuha@postmedia.com

London-area jobless rate, over the past year

• August 2023: 5.6 per cent
• September 2023: 6 per cent
• October 2023: 5.8 per cent
• November 2023: 5.8 per cent
• December 2023: 5.5 per cent
• January 2024: 5.7 per cent
• February 2024: 5.9 per cent
• March 2024: 6.4 per cent
• April 2024: 6.4 per cent
• May 2024: 6.3 per cent
• June 2024: 6.2 per cent
• July 2024: 6.5 per cent
• August 2024: 6.5 per cent

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