After a slight increase in September, Quebec’s unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points this time, reaching 4.9% in October, according to Statistics Canada data released Friday.
The number of workers in La Belle province fell by 0.5% in the 10th month of the year.
While full-time positions fell by 0.9% between September and October 2023, part-time positions recorded an increase of 1.5% over the same period.
Montreal’s census metropolitan area (CMA) has not seen the same trend as the province, with the unemployment rate now at 6%, compared to 5% in September.
Nationally, the unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 5.7%, marking a fourth monthly increase in the past six months.
“Since April, the rate has increased 0.7 percentage points after remaining at a near-record low of 5.0% from December 2022 to April 2023,” Statistics Canada noted.
Employment was little changed, increasing just 0.1%, representing 18,000 new workers in Canada.
In the construction industry in particular, the number of employees rose (+1.5%), which offset the 1.1% decline in September.
In the same wave, employment in the information, culture and leisure sector rose by 2.5% in October, after a decline of 1.4% in the previous month.
“Employment in wholesale and retail trade fell by 22,000 (-0.7%) in October, representing the first decline since October 2022,” the federal agency said.