Unemployment rate ticks up to 6.2% in May as job gains lag population growth

globalnews.ca:

Canada’s unemployment rate rose in May despite a gain of 27,000 jobs, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The unemployment rate now stands at 6.2 per cent, up a tick from 6.1 per cent the month previous.

Canada’s population was growing at a pace faster than employers were adding jobs, StatCan said.

Gains in sectors including health care and social assistance, finance and real estate and food and accommodation were offset by losses in construction, transportation and warehousing and utilities last month.

Growth was wholly in part-time positions (up 62,000 jobs), according to the agency, whereas net full-time employment shrank (down 36,000 jobs).

More Canadians are also turning to part-time work as a matter of need, not choice. StatCan noted that the proportion of employees doing part-time jobs involuntarily because they can’t find full-time work was up to 18.2 per cent in May, an increase from 15.2 per cent a year earlier.

Leslie Preston, senior economist at TD Bank, said in a note to clients Friday that the Canadian economy “geared down” after a robust jobs report in April.

“The economy has cooled, but it has not fallen off a cliff,” she said.

Employment figures released in the United States on Friday show the American economy continues to add jobs at a robust rate. U.S. employers added 272,000 positions last month, though the unemployment rate edged up to 4.0 per cent from 3.9 per cent a month previous.

In Canada, average hourly wages also accelerated to 5.1 per cent in May, up from 4.7 per cent in April.

The Bank of Canada said earlier this week, after reducing its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than four years, that it would be watching the pace of pay hikes as it determines the pace of future rate