Canadian Employment Moves Modestly Higher in March; Unemployment Continued to Hold Steady

Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported Thursday (4-6-23) that in March, employment grew by 35,000, or 0.2%. March’s increase follows little change in February and a gain of 150,000 in January. StatCan notes that employment has generally been on an upward trend since September 2022; and since then, employment has increased by 383,000, or 1.9%.

In March, employment gains were mostly in the private sector, where transportation and warehousing added 41,000 jobs, or 4.2%. Business, building, and other support services hired an additional 31,000, or 4.4%. Finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and leasing added 19,000 positions, or 1.3%. Offsetting those gains were loses in the construction sector, down 19,000 jobs, or 1.2%; other services (which include personal and repair services), which jettisoned 11,500 positions, or 1.5%; and natural resources, which lost 11,000 jobs, or 3.2%.

The unemployment rate held steady in March for the fourth consecutive month at 5.0%, hovering just above the record low unemployment rate of 4.9% observed in both June and July of 2022. StatCan reports that most (63.4%) unemployed Canadians in March had been unemployed for 13 weeks or less. Year-over-year, the portion of Canadians who had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more—the long-term unemployed—was 16.0%, down from 20.3% recorded in March 2022.