Canadian Job Growth Hasn’t Been This Slow Outside of Recession

Canadian employment beat market expectations last month, easing recession fears. Statistics Canada (StatCan) employment shows the country added jobs in June. The unemployment rate also fell to a multi-month low, but a look past the headline reveals a dimmer picture. Outside a recession, Canada has never seen annual employment growth this weak in June. 

Canadian Unemployment Falls On Temporary FIFA Boost

Seasonally adjusted employment rose 0.1% (+18k jobs) to 21.14 million in June. StatCan called this “little changed,” but it added 0.1 percentage points (ppts) to the employment rate. The unemployment rate also trimmed 0.1 ppts to 6.5%, its lowest level since January. Overall, it was generally a good report if you only read the headline data. A little context makes a big difference. 

Last month’s employment data includes a temporary FIFA employment bump. The event was touted as supporting 24k to 30k jobs, higher than the actual growth seen across Canada. Add that to other significant but temporary boosts like Census 2026 interviewers, and the minor growth is on even weaker footing. 

Source: StatCan; Better Dwelling. 

Zooming out reveals this is one of the worst years on record for Canada’s job market, and by extension its economy. Unadjusted net employment growth was just 0.4% (+90.3k) jobs in the 12 months ending in June, less than a quarter of last year. Last month was Canada’s weakest annual growth reported in June since the pandemic. 

Excluding 2020, one has to go all the way back to 2014 to find weaker annual growth, when the global oil downturn began. The 2009 Global Financial Crisis is the only other June in at least 30 years to report such weak annual growth.

Canadian economists are shocked that anyone expects a recession with recent job numbers. We don’t have a crystal ball, but those expecting one have a solid reason to believe that. After all, Canada’s net job growth has never been this slow outside of a recession.