Canada lost 10,000 jobs in November and the country’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.6 percent.
The drop comes following two straight months of job gains.
According to a report by Statistics Canada, there were 10,700 fewer jobs in November than there were in October.
Despite the economy adding 5,000 full-time jobs, around 16,000 part-time positions were lost.
The Canadian dollar dropped following the news to its lowest level in over five years, closing at 87.48 cents US. It dipped down to as low as 87.21 cents US in trading hours, which is the lowest it has been since July 2009.
Scotiabank issued a statement regarding the weak job results:
“There are roughly 3.5 million part-time workers in Canada and about 305,000 of those are involuntarily part-time, so any switch away from part-time to full-time work can be a sign of a healthier labour market,”
Ontario posted a loss of 34,000 jobs and Saskatchewan lost 3,900 jobs – despite being the province with the strongest rate of job creation.
Quebec experienced a gain though, adding over 19,000 new jobs in November. This is the first time in over six moths that Quebec has seen any job growth.
Retail sector posts biggest job losses
The retail sector accounted for most of the job losses, with the sector posting a loss of 42,000 jobs and service-production jobs lost 28,000 positions.
However, the country’s agricultural sector added 8,000 jobs during the month and the goods-producing sectors added 17,000 jobs.
“This seems like a natural pullback following substantial employment gains in September and October,” Scotiabank said. “Given the volatility that we’ve seen in recent releases, we caution against drawing too many conclusions on this one data point.”
Scotia bank’s currency strategist Camilla Sutton told Bloomberg:
“You have to put the weak Canadian report into perspective. We’ve had two months of significant job gains, and one month doesn’t reverse that.”
