May 07, 2021
By Gavin Day
As expected, Canada’s economy shed 100s of thousands of jobs last month as the latest round of COVID-19 restrictions went into effect in many provinces.
Statistics Canada says the economy lost 207,000 in April.
The unemployment rate rose to 8.1 per cent from 7.5 per cent in March.
StatsCan says the number of employed people in April working less than half their usual hours increased by 288,000 or 27.2 per cent.
In March, the economy added 303-thousand jobs but that was just before the third wave forced new closures and restrictions.
South of the border, U.S. employers added just 266,000 jobs last month. That’s well below the past two months that averaged more than 900,000 new jobs per month.
Some businesses are struggling to find workers at the U.S. economy strenghthens.
Unemployment ticked up to 6.1% up from 6%.
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