Canada’s job market took a leap toward recovery in July.
Statistics Canada says the country added 75,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in two years, to 6.4 per cent.
This also includes 52,000 new jobs in Ontario, and 1,500 in Belleville.
Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, Vic Fedeli, spoke with Quinte News, who says the province has been seeing significant job growth since April.
“I mean, Ontario alone is responsible for more than 55% of all the jobs created across Canada over the last year. So we really are leading the nation in job creation,” Fedeli claimed to Quinte News.
“We’ve had almost 120,000 new jobs since April, and that includes 20,000 in the manufacturing sector.”
He explained which sector contributed the biggest job growth in the province for July.
“We saw a lot in the construction sector, more than 15,000 in the construction sector alone,” Fedeli said.
“So we saw good industrial-type jobs in the thousands. On a more local level, Ontario Truss and Wall in Belleville alone, you know, they made an investment of $11 million expanding their wood building materials and meeting the demand in that construction sector that’s creating these jobs. So, you know, there’s a nice little local flavour as well.”
The provincial unemployment rate fell two-tenths to 6.8 per cent.
The local unemployment rate was unchanged in July.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey reports the unemployment rate for the Belleville-Quinte West Census Metropolitan Area, which includes Belleville, Quinte West, Deseronto-Tyendinaga and Stirling-Rawdon, was 6.7 per cent, the same as June.
You can listen to the full interview with Minister Fedeli below:
With files from Canadian Press
