OTTOWA - The Canadian unemployment rate rose to 8.6 percent in October, the first rise in two months, as the economy shed 43,000 part-time jobs, official data showed Friday. Statistics Canada said the rise in the jobless rate from 8.4 percent in September resulted from job losses that were “all in part time.”
The data was worse than the 8.5 percent jobless rate most analysts had anticipated.
And the job losses were unexpected. Analysts had projected that the economy had created 10,000 jobs last month, after the creation of 31,000 jobs in September.
The rising unemployment rate comes as Canada struggles to emerge from recession amid the global economic crisis.
Since an employment peak in October 2008, the number of employees in the private sector has fallen by 4.1 percent, a faster rate of decline than the 1.6 percent drop in the public sector, the national data agency said.
By contrast, self-employment has increased by 3.9 percent since the peak.
In October, the economy shed 60,000 part-time jobs, the second month running of hefty losses.
Full-time jobs slightly increased, extending a sharp increase seen in September.
Most of October’s employment decline came from retail and wholesale trade, “other services” and natural resources, the agency said.
Those losses were partially offset by gains in transportation and warehousing.
The average hourly wage in October was up 3.3 percent from a year ago.
Over the past 12 months, the number of full-time jobs has dropped 2.7 percent, a sharply faster rate than the 0.7 percent decline in part-time jobs.
The Canadian economy is projected to grow by 3.0 percent in 2010 and 3.3 percent in 2011, after contracting by 2.4 percent this year, the central bank said last month.
