Canada’s Jobless Rate Climbs: StatsCan

Kate Yule
Friday, November 6, 2009

The latest jobs report comes as an unpleasant surprise for many economists.

They had predicted a gain of about 10,000 jobs, but instead the economy lost more than 43,000 jobs in October.

Analysts hunting for good news say that the losses happened in the part-time category, while the number of full-time jobs actually increased slightly.

In Ontario, the rate of unemployment rose slightly from 9.2 per cent to 9.3 per cent. Windsor has the highest jobless rate in the province, although it did drop from 14.3 to 13.7 per cent last month.

In Ottawa, the jobless rate went up from 4.8 per cent in September to 5.2 per cent in October.

South of the border, the unemployment rate has exceeded 10 per cent for the first time since 1983.

Nearly 16 million Americans cannot find jobs.

U.S. economists say the jobless rate could soar as high as 10.5 per cent in 2010.