Canada added 18,000 jobs in June as unemployment rate edged down

June figures indicated a stronger start to summer job market for students, StatsCan said

Applicants at the CNE’s job fair wait in line at the Enercare Centre in Toronto on July 30, 2025.

Abby Hughes (new window) · CBC News

Canada's economy added 18,000 jobs in June, continuing the momentum in the job market seen the month before.

According to data from Statistics Canada released Friday, the moderate addition of jobs helped edge down the unemployment rate slightly to 6.5 per cent.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a net of 10,000 job gains, following a jump of 87,800 jobs in May, and ​they had estimated the unemployment rate at 6.6 per cent.

Statistics Canada said the job gains ⁠in June were largely concentrated in part-time work and in accommodation and food services and wholesale and retail trade.

See interactive chart here (new window)

Given the concentration of jobs in part-time work and industries like food service and retail trade, BMO chief economist Doug Porter says the figures shouldn't be taken as too much of a positive sign as the hiring might be temporary around the World Cup.

While an encouraging result overall, one shouldn't mistake this as a show of strength, Porter wrote in a note to economists.

On the other side of the ledger, job losses in the manufacturing sector to the tune of 17,000 positions were a drag on the figures. That industry is down some 61,000 jobs since a recent peak in January 2025 as U.S. tariffs continue to weigh on the sector, Statistics Canada said.

The unemployment rate among youth fell 0.7 percentage points to 12.7 in the month, as 33,000 positions were added for workers between the ages of 15 and 24.

While the unemployment rate in this category has improved in the last two months, Statistics Canada said it still remains higher than the pre-pandemic average of 10.8 per cent observed during the period ​from 2017 to 2019.

Jobs data also indicates a better student summer job market than last year. The unemployment rate for students planning to return to school in the fall was 15.3 per cent last month — down 2.1 percentage points from June 2025. But in this category, too, the rate was still higher than the pre-pandemic average of 13 per cent.

WATCH | What's behind Canada's youth unemployment?:

Returning students mostly found employment in the retail trade, accommodation and food services, and information, culture and recreation sectors in June.

Average hourly wages ​of permanent employees, a metric closely tracked ⁠by the Bank of Canada to gauge inflation expectations, also grew 3.7 per cent in June, a rise from 3.2 per cent in May.

In all, BMO's Porter noted that Canada churned out some moderate job growth in June after a rocky start to the year, in which Canada lost a net 112,000 jobs in the first four months of 2026.

In other words, it doesn't take a lot of new jobs — up just 0.5 per cent in the past year — to pull down the jobless rate when the population is ebbing, Porter wrote.

CIBC's Andrew Grantham and Porter both said the mild report likely won't do much to encourage the Bank of Canada to move interest rates.

The next interest rate decision is on Wednesday, and Friday's jobs report was the last major look at the state of the economy for the central bank before then.

Abby Hughes is a writer with CBC News based in Toronto. Originally from Orillia, Ont., she studied journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. She covers news from the worlds of business, entertainment, health, science and education, and her favourite stories focus on the real people in those areas — the customers, fans, patients, citizens and students. You can reach her with story ideas at abby.hughes@cbc.ca.

With files from Reuters and The Canadian Press