Canadian Employment Rises by 88,000 in May; Unemployment at 6.6%

On Friday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that Canadian employment rose by 88,000 jobs, or 0.4%, in May. It marks the first significant employment gain since November 2025 after a net decline of 112,000 jobs, or 0.5%, over the first four months of the year.

The employment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 60.7% in May. Year-over-year, employment was up by 147,000 jobs, or 0.7%.

The unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage points to 6.6% in May, after rising from a recent low of 6.5% in January to 6.9% in April.

Since spring 2024, the unemployment rate has remained above its pre-pandemic average of 6.0% from 2017–19. The rate reached a recent peak of 7.1% in August and September 2025.