Windsor's jobless rate bucked the national and provincial trends in April. Instead of dipping down, it ticked one-tenth of a percentage point upwards to 8.2 per cent.
The city's economy shed 2,100 jobs last month, but the local labour force also shrank by 2,200 people, and the labour participation rate slipped by 1.5 per cent to 61.9 per cent.
Nationally, another 88,000 net positions were added to Canada's economy, mostly full-time. That drove the employment rate up 0.2 per cent to 60.7 per cent and lowered the unemployment rate by three-tenths of a percentage point to 6.6 per cent.
The gain in employment is the first significant increase since last November, after the national economy shed 112,000 jobs in the first four months of the year.
Construction led job creation by adding 27,000 positions. Accommodation and food services added 17,000 jobs, while information, culture and recreation and transportation and warehousing added 19,000 each. Wholesale and trade lost 35,000 positions.
Statistics Canada's Labour Market Survey also noted 26 per cent of those looking for work in April found a job in May.
Perhaps the most significant change is in youth unemployment. In May, the percentage of those 15 to 24 looking for work fell 0.9 per cent to 13.4 per cent. Another 22,000 jobs were filled by workers in that age group last month.
The unemployment rate among returning students was 18 per cent, down 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. Last year, those students faced the slowest start to the summer job season since 2009, aside from the pandemic years.
Jobless fell in Ontario as the economy added 42,000 jobs, almost half of all positions filled across the country in May. For the second consecutive month, the unemployment rate fell in May to 7 per cent, the lowest since September 2024.
