While the jobless rate nationally and provincially rose last month, employment in Windsor grew by 700 jobs.
Statistics Canada released the results of its Labour Market Survey on Friday. It was taken between January 10 and January 16 while much of Southern Ontario was in lockdown.
Despite entering lockdown ahead of much of Ontario, Windsor's jobless rate fell from 11.2 per cent in December to 10.3 per cent in January. The drop of 0.9 percentage points correlates with a decline in the local labour force as 900 people stopped looking for work.
There was also a drop in the labour participation force. It was 56.3 per cent in December. In January, it was 56 per cent.
The national economy shed 213,000 net positions in January as employment fell to its lowest level since last August. The losses were entirely in part-time work. Retail sectors in Ontario and Quebec, where pandemic restrictions were tightened, felt the brunt.
In Ontario, the jobless rate rose to 10.2 per cent, an increase of 0.6 percentage points from December. The province lost 153,500 net positions.
Across Canada, the unemployment rate, 9.4 per cent, reached its highest peak since August. The accommodation and foodservice industry, retail, and information, culture and recreation were the hardest hit.
More people worked from home in January too. The report said a total of 5.4-million working Canadians stayed home, an increase from even last April at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic when 5.1-million called their home their workplace.
The survey also asked recipients if they were afraid of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace, and 43.3 per cent said they were.
Long-term unemployment reached a record high as the number of people who have been without employment for 27 weeks or more reached 512,000.
