Canada’s job market closer to pre-Covid levels

A third consecutive month of job gains pushed Canada's unemployment rate down 0.4 percentage points in August to 7.1 per cent -- its lowest level since the onset of the pandemic, the national statistics agency said Friday.

Canada's unemployment rate has trended downward since a peak of 13.7 per cent in May 2020 that was more than double historic lows a few months earlier.

Combined with gains in June and July, the August increase brought employment to within 156,000 (-0.8 per cent) of its pre-pandemic levels, said Statistics Canada.