Unbelievable turnouts for hiring events and near-daily social media pleas from residents desperately seeking work have been stark indications of how bad Toronto's job market has become, and new data from Statistics Canada is now bolstering this grim picture.

The latest workforce numbers from the government agency, released on June 7, show the current rate of unemployment in regions across the country based on how many people are actively relying on Employment Insurance (EI) benefits.

And Toronto is faring the worst out of all major Canadian cities except for one.

Unemployment Rate in Toronto Rises to 7.8%
byu/Various_Gas_332 intoronto

Per StatsCan's chart, the unemployment rate has hit 7.8 per cent in Toronto, which comes just a few months after Ontario's marked the largest surge of EI claims in any province, increasing by one third.

By comparison, Vancouver's unemployment rate is listed as 5.8 per cent, Montreal's as 5.9 per cent, Halifax's as 5.6, Winnipeg's as 5.2 per cent, St. John's as 7.1 per cent and Ottawa's, 5.3 per cent.

The only major city that has a higher unemployment rate right now is Calgary, at 8.5 per cent, though smaller cities like Windsor (9.1 per cent) and St. Catharines (8 per cent) were also found to be worse.

📣 JUST IN: Canada's Unemployment Rate Rises to 6.2% in May 📊🇨🇦 #Economy #Jobs #Canada

👉 Key Highlights:

📍 Canada's unemployment rate rose to 6.2% in May.

📍 Economy added 27,000 jobs last month.

📍 Job market weakened by high interest rates.

📍 25% of April's unemployed… pic.twitter.com/J2w5tuh6Mf

— Hardik Shah (@AIStockSavvy) June 7, 2024

While Toronto area cities like Oshawa, Hamilton, and Kitchener all have lower rates ranging from 5.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent, more rural parts of the country — such as Nunavut, Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba — have rates as dire as 32.9 per cent.

Canada's overall unemployment rate increased to 6.2 per cent according to this latest release, a 0.1 per cent rise from the month prior and 0.9 per cent from the same time last year.