The unemployment rate in Canada remained at 5.5% last August despite the national economy adding 40,000 jobs to the labor market. These gains are offset by record population growth, according to data released today by Statistics Canada.

The unemployment rate stabilized in August after recording an increase in the previous three months, May, June, and July.

The professional, scientific, and technical services sectors added the largest number of jobs last month, totaling 52,000, followed by the construction sector, which added 34,000 jobs.

In contrast to these gains, there was a decrease of about 44,000 jobs in educational services and 30,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.

“The number of unemployed was 1.2 million, almost unchanged compared to the previous month, but an increase of 123,000 people since April,” said the agency.

In August 2023, the percentage of people who usually work exclusively from home was 13.2%, down 3.2 percentage points compared to August 2022.

In August 2023, the unemployment rate in Canada’s ten provinces, from east to west, was as follows (the unemployment rate in July 2023 is mentioned in parentheses): Newfoundland and Labrador 8.9% (8.7%), Nova Scotia 7.0% (7.7%), Prince Edward Island 7.6% (8.1%), New Brunswick 7.7% (6.2%), Quebec 4.3% (4.5%), Ontario 5.9% (5.6%), Manitoba 5.7% (4.9%), Saskatchewan 5.4% (5.1%), Alberta 5.7% (6.1%), and British Columbia 5.2% (5.4%).

Record demographic growth:

It is worth mentioning that population growth in Canada last month exceeded employment growth, with the former being 0.3% compared to 0.2% for the latter.

Thus, the employment rate fell by 0.1 percentage points last month to 61.9%.

It is noted that the employment rate represents the percentage of the population aged 15 years and older who are employed.

In this regard, it is pointed out that the number of individuals aged 15 years and older increased by more than 103,000 last month compared to the previous month.

Since January 2023, the monthly increase in the number of people aged 15 years and older in Canada has been 81,000, compared to 38,000 monthly between 2017 and 2019.

According to Statistics Canada, if the current population growth rate is taken into account, the Canadian economy would need to add 50,000 jobs each month to keep the employment rate stable.

Canada's population reached the threshold of 40 million last June. It had reached the threshold of 30 million in 1997.

Demography experts estimate that Canada could reach a population of 50 million starting from 2050 if current population growth rates continue.