The Canadian economy posted a modest gain of 21,000 jobs in September, according to Statistics Canada.
In the federal agency’s latest labor force survey released on Friday, the unemployment rate for the month of September fell to 5.2%, compared to 5.4% the previous month.
This employment gain was expected, as losses in the education sector over the summer were reversed with the reopening of schools.
The report says gains in education, health care and social assistance were offset by losses in several other sectors, including manufacturing, information, culture and recreation.
Canada’s labor force participation rate — the percentage of people wanting and looking for work — edged down 0.1 percentage points in September.
The employment increase comes after three consecutive months of job losses in the Canadian economy.
While Bank of Canada raises interest rates aggressively to rein in high inflationthe Canadian economy should feel these effects on both economic growth and employment figures.
The central bank has hinted that tight labor markets are partly to blame for high inflation.
Wages rose 5.2% in September from a year ago, with an average hourly wage of $31.67. It was the fourth consecutive month of wage growth of 5% or more.
The report also looked at the retirement of Canadians under 65, a key factor in the apparent shortage of workers. Nearly one million Canadians aged 55 to 64 said they were retired in September.
Over the past 20 years, the labor force participation rate has steadily declined, mainly due to the aging of the population.
The federal agency says that since September 2019, the number of Canadians aged 65 and over has increased by 11.6%, while the working-age population has increased by 3.5%.
As children returned to school in September, the report also looked at the effect of childcare responsibility on career decisions. Despite record employment, women aged 25 to 54 with children under 16 were twice as likely to decide not to apply for a job or promotion in the past year as their male counterparts.
Women were also twice as likely as men to say they help their children with homework and do homeschooling.