‘Stall or partial reversal’: economists on what August jobs mean
The decline was concentrated in full-time employment (-36,000) and driven entirely by services-producing sectors, which shed 52,000 positions.
Business, building and other support services recorded the steepest single-sector drop (-20,000), while manufacturing bucked the trend with a gain of 22,000 jobs.
Quebec absorbed the sharpest regional blow, shedding 19,000 jobs and remaining the only province to post a year-over-year employment decline (-54,000).
Ontario shed 18,000 positions, pushing its unemployment rate from 6.8% to 6.9%.
Structural shifts beneath the headline
TD Economics director and senior economist Andrew Hencic was measured in his assessment. “Although disappointing, given the noisy nature of the data a step backwards is not a major surprise after a string of hot reports,” he wrote in his August employment commentary.
