Young people contribute to June employment rate drop in Hamilton

Hamilton's director of economic development says fewer jobs for young people played a part in the rise in the city's unemployment rate.

Neil Everson said part of the unemployment rise comes from the 15-21 age bracket.

"Youth unemployment is higher this year than last time last year," he said. "There’s not as much summer employment as there was."

By the time July and August comes around, he said, those students would have gotten work, so that number should drop.

Statistics Canada figures released Friday indicated more Hamiltonians were looking for work last month.

Hamilton's unemployment rate jumped to 7.3 per cent in June. That's up from 6.8 per cent in May. That puts the city just above the national average of 7.2 per cent.

Everson said this is just a statistical sampling, and not exactly perfect.

"When Statistics Canada does this, it’s not like someone is physically counting the number of employed people in a community," he said. "They do telephone surveys, then they do statistical analysis."

Everson said Hamilton's population grew, alongside the labour force population. The employed population decreased, and the unemployment population increased.

Statistics Canada said Friday the national economy added 7,300 jobs in June but 16,800 more people were out of the official labour force during the month. That pushed the unemployment rate lower.

Private sector employers dropped 26,000 jobs in June. Those losses were more than made up for by the public sector where 38,900 jobs were added.

Ontario led the way with 20,200 new full-time jobs while job numbers in other provinces didn't change much.

Some 63.2 per cent of Canadians aged 20-24 had jobs in June. That's down from 67.4 per cent in June of 2011.

Statistics Canada stated that these numbers reflect "the lowest June employment rate since comparable data became available in 1977."