London-St. Thomas jobless rate continues upward trend, reaches 10% in June – London

The unemployment rate in London-St. Thomas climbed 0.3 percentage points to 10 per cent in June as the number of people looking for work once again outpaced the number of jobs created.

It’s the highest the unemployment rate has been since July 2020, when it stood at 10.5 per cent. However, it’s still below the COVID-19 pandemic high of 12.6 per cent reported last June.

Statistics Canada data released Friday shows the number of people with jobs increased by 400 but the number of people who claimed unemployment insurance because they are actively looking for work increased by 1,100.

The participation rate, which measures the proportion of the working-age population that is working or looking for work, inched up slightly higher to 66.4 per cent in June from 66.2 per cent in May.

The jobless rate has been steadily increasing since falling to 6.9 per cent in February. Since then, it inched slightly higher to 7.0 per cent in March, then to 8.2 per cent in April, soaring to 9.7 per cent in May and now climbing to 10 per cent in June.

In each monthly report for March, April, May and June, data shows that the increase in the jobless rate seems to be due to a rise in the number of people looking for work that outpaced the number of jobs added.

So far in 2021, 10,300 jobs have been added.

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