A man walks past a job board on a street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on March 11, 2022. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)
With the exception of an increase in January 2022, the unemployment rate has fallen consistently in recent months, mirroring the situation in other countries with increasingly tight labor markets.
OTTAWA, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Canada's unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.5 percent in March, the lowest rate on record since comparable data became available in 1976, Statistics Canada said Friday.
The drop in the overall unemployment rate in March was driven in large part by a decline of 2.1 percentage points in the unemployment rate for male youth, which fell to a low of 10.2 percent. In contrast, the unemployment rate for female youth was little changed in March at 9.3 percent, according to Statistics Canada.
With the exception of an increase in January 2022, the unemployment rate has fallen consistently in recent months, mirroring the situation in other countries with increasingly tight labor markets, including the United States, Australia and Britain.
Statistics Canada said the total employment rose by 73,000, or 0.4 percent, in March, driven by an increase of 93,000, or 0.6 percent in full-time work. A frequent point of comparison between Canada and the United States is the employment rate, defined as the number of people who are employed as a percentage of the working-age population, which is typically higher in Canada.
Adjusted to U.S. concepts, and for the population aged 16 and older, the employment rate was 62.4 percent in Canada and 60.1 percent in the United States in March. The rate was unchanged from February 2020 in Canada, compared with a decline of 1.1 percentage points in the United States, Statistics Canada explained. ■
