A sobering picture of Canada’s labour market and the hit taken by COVID-19 from Statistics Canada.
The unemployment rate across Canada ballooned last month to 13.2%, an increase of more than 5% from March. Ontario’s rate hit 11.3 per cent.
In Thunder Bay, the number reached 8.3% for April, in March it was 6.1 and February came in at 5.3%.
More than two million people across the county lost their jobs, adding to the million others pushed out of a job in March. Stats Canada says that’s the worst decline in employment since the recession in 1981 and 1982.
Another two and a half million people had their hours reduced.
