Ontario just lost 20K jobs but it's not as bad as it sounds

Ontario lost 20,000 jobs last month, and while that's bound to generate some doom-and-gloom headlines, Canada's new Labour Force Survey isn't as bad as it looks for residents of the country's most populous province.

Employment in Ontario declined by 0.2 per cent in September, with the province hemorrhaging approximately 20,000 jobs amid tariffs and other economic pressure imposed by the United States.

Sounds bad, right? 

If we fixate on the month-over-month figures, then yes, it's pretty bad. But zoom out to the year-over-year metric, and Ontario employment actually increased by 1.1 per cent, or about 86,000 jobs, since the previous September.

Unemployment in the province barely moved in September month-over-month, rising from 6.9 to 7 per cent, though this figure was actually down by just shy of a full percentage point year-over-year, sitting at 8 per cent the same time last year.

Ontario's unemployment rate is about right in the middle among the provinces and territories, sitting ahead of P.E.I. at 7.3 per cent, N.B. at 7.4 per cent, N.L. at 9.1 per cent, and Nunavut at 11 per cent.

Statistics Canada

While that information certainly softens the blow, some sectors saw much more pronounced job losses over the last year. 

The educational services sector combined for a 3.2 per cent slide year over year, with approximately 19,000 jobs lost. Ontario's losses in this sector made up a significant share of the 67,000 education jobs lost nationwide year-over-year, though not as hard hit as Quebec, which lost 27,000 jobs in this sector.

In Toronto, the unemployment rate climbed in September to 7.2 per cent from 6.7 per cent month-over-month. It may be lower than the out-of-control rates seen earlier this year, but it's still on the uptick.

However, Canada's largest city's unemployment rate remained in line with other major metropolitan areas, with a more pronounced decline in employment in Montreal and Vancouver.