Canada loses 18,000 jobs in April, unemployment rate rises to 6.9%; Quebec worst hit shedding 43,000
Posted May 8, 2026 4:00 am.
Last Updated May 8, 2026 10:12 am.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday showed a slight drop in jobs in April as the unemployment rate climbed higher.
The agency said the economy shed 18,000 jobs in April, following an increase of 14,000 jobs in March. Quebec lost the most jobs last month.
The loss came as the unemployment rate rose to 6.9 per cent compared with 6.7 per cent in March, returning to where it was in October last year, largely because more people were looking for work.
In Quebec, the unemployment rate rose by 0.8 percentage points to 6.2 per cent in April, due to a decline in the number of people employed and an increase in the number of people looking for work.
Statistics Canada reports that the Quebec economy lost 43,000 jobs in April. From January to April, employment in Quebec saw a net decline of 91,000, with most of the losses occurring in the Montreal region.
In the Montreal region, the unemployment rate stood at 7.7 per cent in April, its highest level since July 2016, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, which were marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nationally, in April, the average hourly wage for employees rose by 4.5% compared with a year earlier, following a 4.7 per cent increase in March.
Economists had expected the economy to add jobs in April and for the unemployment rate to hold steady.
While Canada added 67,000 more jobs on a year-over-year basis, the country has lost 112,000 jobs since January, mostly in the manufacturing and wholesale sectors.
The last time Canada lost so many jobs in a four-month window was from October 2020 to January 2021— during the pandemic. In non-pandemic times, you’d have to go back to 2009 when Canada lost 241,000 jobs in a four-month span.
Ontario added 42,000 jobs in April, largely in health care and social assistance, but that was offset by a 43,000-job loss in Quebec in the wholesale and retail trade sectors.
Statistics Canada also said on Friday that average hourly wages were up 4.5 per cent from a year ago.
