The unemployment rate shot up to 7.8% in March as the economy lost 1,011,000 jobs.
Statistics Canada’s employment figures for March, released today, give the first indication of the damage done by the COVID-19 crisis.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had said yesterday that the numbers would be “hard” to read.
The 7.8% unemployment rate is 2.2 points higher than it was in February, the biggest change in over 40 years of comparable records.
It is the worst rate since October 2010, in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
In British Columbia, 132,000 jobs were lost – a 5.2% decrease.
All told, Statistics Canada said some 3.1 million Canadians either lost their jobs or had their hours slashed last month due to COVID-19.
Photo credit: Canadian Press
Economists warn the numbers are likely to be even worse when the agency starts collecting April job figures, with millions more Canadians now receiving emergency federal aid.
Statistics Canada retooled some of its usual measures of counting employed, unemployed and “not in the labour force” to better gauge the effects of COVID-19 on the job market.
The number of people considered unemployed rose by 413,000 (a 36.4% increase) between February and March, almost all of it fuelled by temporary layoffs, meaning workers expected their jobs back in six months.
The jobs report out this morning also says that most of the losses were in the private sector, with the greatest employment declines observed for youth aged 15 to 24.
It also found that 1.3 million Canadians were absent from work for the full week of March 15–21 for reasons “likely” attributable to COVID-19.
The report warned that the number of people absent from work for a full week who weren’t paid — which hit a seasonally adjusted rate of 55.8 per cent — “may be an indication of future job losses.”
“It is expected that the sudden employment decline observed in March will have a significant effect on the performance of the Canadian economy over the coming months,” the agency said.
