New data by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) places Canada among the member countries with the highest unemployment rate.
According to OECD statistics, Canada’s unemployment rate is currently 8.2%, placing it behind countries like Turkey, Columbia, Spain, Greece, Costa Rica, Sweden and Chile.
The OECD blames “temporary layoffs” during the COVID-19 pandemics peak and a “larger decline in the employment rate than the OECD average” as being behind the high unemployment.
“The employment rate is likely to recover slightly more quickly, and the unemployment rate fall more rapidly, than the OECD average, and both are projected to return to pre-pandemic levels by early 2023,” the OECD wrote.
Canada’s unemployment rate has spiked since the COVID-19 pandemic, rising over 2% up from 5.7% since last year.
In response to the numbers, Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre tweeted about how Canada was only doing better than “a handful of mostly socialist countries.”
According to Statistics Canada’s May Labour Force Survey employment also declined by 0.4% that month while the unemployment rate barely budged.
“In May, total employment in the goods-producing sector decreased for the first time since April 2020,” wrote Statistics Canada.
A majority of the jobs lost were in manufacturing, retail and other services. In their report, Statistics Canada noted that the tightening of third wave restrictions by provinces like Ontario and Alberta were a contributing factor in the trends.
