By Robb M. Stewart
OTTAWA--Employers in Canada for a second straight month shed jobs, partially rolling back a jump in hiring seen last fall and pushing the jobless rate back up following a dip to start the year.
A net 83,900 jobs were lost last month, the most since the first month of 2009 outside of the height of the global pandemic, Statistics Canada said Friday.
That was much weaker than slight 10,000 gain in employment economists were expecting, and with more people searching for work the unemployment rate pushed up 0.2 percentage point to 6.7%.
It comes after a more modest 24,800 jobs were cut in January, though the jobless rate remains roughly where it was in February 2025, and below the 6.8% seen in December and recent high of 7.1% logged last August and September.
"This is clearly a very worrisome report for the Bank of Canada that shows that labor market slack has increased and activity is frozen amidst trade uncertainty," Katherine Judge, senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said.
When calculated using U.S. Labor Department methodology, Canada's unemployment rate was 0.2 point higher at 5.6% and steady on where it stood at the start of 2025. In contrast, the unemployment rate in the U.S. has edged higher, hitting 4.4% in February, up 0.4 point from January 2025.
Only sluggish growth is expected from Canada's economy this year as trade uncertainty continues to weigh and after the federal government has taken steps to curb immigration. The Bank of Canada, which meets next week to decide on interest rates, has projected the economy will grow just 1.8% annualized in the first quarter and a soft 1.1% over 2026.
The size of Canada's labor force shrank by 27,200 during February, building on the 119,000 fall to start the year. It comes as the population has remained largely unchanged in the new year, after the federal government moved to cut back on once booming immigration.
The fall in employment in Canada was concentrated in full-time work and for a second consecutive month among private sector workers.
In all, full-time roles dropped by 108,400, more than offsetting the 24,500 gain in part-time work. Though little changed on 12 months earlier, the number of employees in the private sector was down 0.5% from the month before, whereas the numbers in the public sector and among the self-employed were little changed.
The participation rate--the proportion of the working-age population who were either employed or unemployed--dipped 0.1 point to 64.9% in February.
At the same time, the employment rate, or the proportion of the working-age population that is employed, slipped to 60.6% from 60.8%.
Wage growth picked up in the latest month, and remains well above consumer price inflation that has hovered around the central bank's 2% target for about two years. Wages for permanent employees climbed 4.2% on a year earlier, accelerating from 3.3% growth the month before and outpacing the 3.2% advance economists expected.
Data this week from jobs site Indeed indicated Canadians were back hunting for jobs as the new year started, with searches and applications rising 19% in January following a drop the month before--a similar seasonal pattern to that seen in 2025. Still, Indeed said job postings in mid-February were flat from a year earlier, with a pickup for sectors such as retail and technology countering softening of demand in healthcare and education.
Write to Robb M. Stewart robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-13-26 0933ET
