Canada Reports a Record-Breaking Number of Job Losses in March, Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

With non-essential businesses closed, in the hopes of slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, Canada lost a record-breaking 1.01 million jobs in March, and the unemployment rate has soared to 7.8%. The job loss was the largest drop in a single month going all the way back to January 1976. More than 5 million Canadians had applied for all forms of federal emergency unemployment help since March 15, government data showed, suggesting the real jobless rate is closer to 25%. StatsCan said on Thursday, that almost all the job losses were due to temporary layoffs, with workers expected to return to work within six months. Royce Mendes, senior economist at CIBC said, “The April employment reading is likely to be even worse, since shutdowns only really began in earnest around the middle of March.”