The Canadian economy lost over one million jobs in March as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take home. It lifted the unemployment rate up to 7.8 per cent, up 2.2 per cent from February’s 5.6 per cent.
Its the worst single-month change over the 40-years, bringing the unemployment rate to a level not seen since October 2010.
Economists fear the numbers could be even worse in April, with millions more Canadians now receiving emergency federal aid.
Of the people still employed in March, Stats Canada says 2.1 million people either worked less than half their usual hours or didn’t work at all in the week of March 15 to 21, which is when data was collected.
The jobs report out this morning also says that most of the losses were in the private sector, with the greatest employment declines seen in young people aged 15 to 24.
Here in B.C., the unemployment rate was 7.2 per cent in March, up from the five per cent in February. All today, 132,000 jobs were lost in the province.
Only Manitoba at 6.4 per cent had a lower unemployment rate among provinces.