Canada's Unemployment Rate Spikes To 7.2%

For the first time in years, Canada has a higher unemployment rate than the U.S.

The last time the U.S. had a lower unemployment rate than Canada was in 2008.

Economists were expecting Canada to create about 14,000 net new jobs in December, but the country actually lost 46,000, StatsCan said Friday morning.


The unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 per cent, up from 6.9 per cent, where it had sat for the past few months.

The biggest losers were Ontario (down 39,000 jobs) and Alberta (down 12,000 jobs). By industry, education saw the biggest drop (18,500 jobs lost), while hotels and restaurants lost 16,000 jobs and construction jobs were down 14,000.

Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):

_ Newfoundland 10.8 (12.3)

_ Prince Edward Island 11.5 (11.4)

_ Nova Scotia 9.2 (8.8)

_ New Brunswick 9.7 (9.7)

_ Quebec 7.7 (7.2)

_ Ontario 7.9 (7.2)

_ Manitoba 5.5 (5.6)

_ Saskatchewan 3.9 (4.1)

_ Alberta 4.8 (4.7)

_ British Columbia 6.6 (6.7)