Canada Lost 84,000 Jobs in February, Unemployment Rate Rose to 6.7 Percent

The Canadian economy lost a total of 84,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate rose 0.2 points to 6.7 percent, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

The March 13 report said the decline in employment was primarily due to a drop in full-time and private-sector jobs, with losses concentrated among men aged 25 to 55 and young people aged 15 to 24. Employment levels changed little for core-aged women and those aged 55 and older.

StatCan said there were 56,000 job losses in services-producing industries and 28,000 in goods-producing industries. The largest declines were in wholesale and retail trade, which lost 18,000 jobs, while “other services,” including personal and repair services, fell by 14,000.

The number of government workers fell by 73,000 in February, which was the second consecutive monthly decline. The number of public sector employees and self-employed workers changed little in February.

February’s job losses were the largest in more than four years. In January 2022, Canada lost 200,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points to 6.5 percent as the Omicron wave of COVID-19 triggered a new round of public health restrictions.

The latest jobs report also comes after 25,000 jobs were lost in January, with StatCan saying the job declines “partially offset the upward trend observed in the fall of 2025.” Canada had gained 60,000 jobs in September, 67,000 jobs in October, 54,000 in November, and 8,200 in December.

StatCan said that while the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent in February, it was virtually unchanged from 6.6 percent a year earlier and remained below its recent high of 7.1 percent in September 2025. Among Canadians aged 15 to 24, the unemployment rate rose by 1.3 percentage points to 14.1 percent, close to its recent high of 14.6 percent in September 2025.

Across the provinces, the rise in unemployment was the largest in Quebec (0.7 percent), while Ontario, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick saw increases of 0.3 percent, and Nova Scotia saw an increase of 0.2 percent. British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador saw their unemployment rate remain flat, while Manitoba saw its rate fall by 0.6 percent, Alberta saw its rate fall by 0.1 percent, and Prince Edward Island saw a decline of 0.4 percent.

The average hourly wages among employees rose by 3.9 percent on a year-over-year basis in February, which came after 3.3 percent growth in January.

Reacting to the jobs reports, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the government had “delivered the only shrinking economy and the worst food inflation among G7 countries.”

“We must remove this Liberal government’s barriers blocking investment and growth, and fight for tariff-free trade to protect [Canadian] jobs and power paycheques,” he said. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to the jobs report by telling reporters that Canada had “created over 80,000 jobs” on a net basis over the past six months. He said the unemployment rate was lower than when he became prime minister in early 2025, when it stood at 6.9 percent in April of that year.

Carney said U.S. tariffs were causing “big adjustments” in Canada’s economy, and that the Liberal government was making “major investments across a whole range of areas” in response.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis, who serves as his party’s shadow employment minister, said the numbers in the StatCan report are “bad” and indicate “how Liberal policies on jobs and the economy are failing.”