Canada's unemployment rate rises to 6.1 pct in March

OTTAWA, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Canada's unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 6.1 percent in March, bringing the cumulative increase over the past 12 months to 1 percentage points, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The monthly increase in the unemployment rate was driven by an increase of 60,000 people searching for work or on temporary layoff. This brought the total number of unemployed people to 1.3 million, an increase of 247,000, or 23 percent, compared with 12 months earlier, the national statistical agency said.

The majority of people who were unemployed in February remained unemployed in March and unemployed persons may have faced greater difficulties finding work compared with a year earlier, the agency said.

According to the agency, from March 2023 to March 2024, the unemployment rate rose 3.9 percentage points to 10.8 percent among core-aged Black Canadians. Over the same period, the unemployment rate increased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.7 percent for core-aged South Asian Canadians and 1.1 percentage points to 7.2 percent for core-aged Chinese Canadians.

Among the non-racialized, non-Indigenous population of core working age, the unemployment rate increased 0.5 percentage points to 4.4 percent over the 12-month period, the agency added.

Employment was little changed and the employment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 61.4 percent, Statistics Canada said.