Canadian unemployment rises to 7.5pc in December
January 07, 2012 00:00:00
OTTAWA, Jan 6 (AFP): Canada added 18,000 jobs in December but the unemployment rate still edged up to 7.5 per cent as more people joined the country's labor market, according to official figures released Friday.
Analysts had expected unemployment to hold at the previous months's 7.4 per cent figure, after 19,000 jobs were lost in November.
The latest figures bring the total growth for 2011 to 1.2 per cent, or 199,000 new jobs overall, with nearly all of the gains in the first half of the year, said Statistics Canada.