Tens of thousands of Canadians found themselves out of full-time work last month, as the country's unemployment rate climbed one-tenth of a percentage point to 6.2 per cent, according to a Statistics Canada report.
About 39,000 full-time jobs were lost -- mostly in Ontario, as the province's manufacturing sector continues to struggle. However, a gain of 34,200 part-time jobs lessened the blow, leaving a net loss of 5,000.
In the past 12 months, employment growth in part-time work has been faster than that of full time, says the report.
June marked the second month in a row that full-time employment fell sharply -- a key indicator that the economy may be slipping closer to a recession.
"The Canadian employment report was disappointing for June," said economic strategist Charmaine Buskas at TD Securities.
"It is clear the pace of job growth is slowing, and that is partly a function of the headwinds from the U.S. being felt by Canadian industry.
"But it is also interesting that there is a trend change in the composition of job growth, which favours part time. That is not particularly good for long-term growth."
Canada's unemployment rate is now the highest it's been since January 2007.
Provincial breakdown
Oil-rich Alberta saw employment increases of 10,000 last month, pushing the province's employment rate to a new record high of 72.2 per cent.
Nova Scotia also had a new record-high employment rate of 59.3 per cent, fueled by monthly gains of 6,200.
Manitoba was the only other province to report monthly gains in June.
Meanwhile, Ontario lost 24,000 jobs last month. The province is heavily dependent on manufacturing jobs, which were unchanged in June, but down 1.6 per cent from last year.
"Despite (job losses), employment in the province has grown 1.7 per cent over the past 12 months, spurred by increases in construction and several service industries," said the report.
However, Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist with BMO Capital Markets. told The Canadian Press that announced auto sector layoffs have yet to take effect.
"Ontario manufacturing jobs have actually risen in May and June and I think that's an accident waiting to happen," he said.
"The surprise is that over the last 12 months, Ontario has managed to match the national gain in employment growth. If anything, we're going to see a relatively weaker performance for Ontario versus the rest of the country in the second half of the year."
The national unemployment rate was 6.2 per cent in June. Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):
- Newfoundland 13.1 (12.5)
- Prince Edward Island 10.1 (9.6)
- Nova Scotia 7.6 (8.2)
- New Brunswick 9.7 (8.9)
- Quebec 7.2 (7.5)
- Ontario 6.7 (6.4)
- Manitoba 4.1 (4.2)
- Saskatchewan 4.0 (4.1)
- Alberta 3.3 (3.6)
- British Columbia 4.5 (4.5)
