Canada’s unemployment rate climbed to 6.7 percent in October, up from 6.5 percent in September, government data shows.
The increase was largely fuelled by 33,000 additional people actively seeking work, according to the latest Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey.
“This marked a second consecutive monthly increase in the unemployment rate,” StatCan said. “The unemployment rate in October was down 0.2 percentage points year-over-year and remained below the recent peak of 6.9 percent recorded in April 2026.”
A Reuters survey of economists had forecast that the economy would rebound to add 13,600 jobs in October, but the economy lost a net 4,700 jobs instead.
The labour market has weakened in recent months, shedding a combined 110,000 jobs in August and September.
Private sector employment dropped by 53,000 jobs last month, its first decline since February, but employment in the public sector rose by 50,000 positions.
Compared with a year earlier, public sector employment fell by 70,000, while private sector employment edged up by 35,000. Self-employment changed little in October but was 52,000 higher than 12 months before.
Employment in wholesale and retail trade has declined over the past year, with the sector recording the steepest losses in October as it shed 29,000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing, along with food and accommodation, also lost jobs last month, while construction and education saw some gains.
StatCan said the layoff rate stood at 0.7 per cent, “virtually unchanged” from a year earlier. The rate measures the proportion of people working in September who were laid off by October.
Average hourly wages among employees increased 2.2 percent year-over-year in October, slowing from 2.3 percent growth in September.
Employment by Age
The unemployment rate among young workers aged 15 to 24 rose to 13.7 percent in October, up 0.7 percentage points from September, as employment slipped and more young people entered the job search.
Young workers have endured a challenging labour market in recent years, but the unemployment rate for this age group changed little over the summer.
Among youth, the jobless rate stood at 13.5 percent for students and 12.3 percent for those outside school. Both rates changed little from a year earlier, but school attendance among youth was up, StatCan said. It stood at 63.3 percent in October, edging up from 62.2 percent 12 months earlier.
The youth employment rate stood at 54 percent in October, showing little change from the previous month or a year earlier.
The unemployment rate for people aged 25 to 54 also remained steady, coming in at 5.8 percent for men and 5.3 percent for women in October.
The unemployment rate for people 55 and older climbed 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 percent in October as employment dipped slightly. Compared with the same period last year, however, the rate was little changed.
October’s employment figures arrived just over a week after the Bank of Canada raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years. Bank officials said the economy’s resilience and concerns that inflation could spread justified increasing the policy rate by a quarter point, to 2.5 percent.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
