Articles : Canada added 104,000 jobs in December, while unemployment fell to 5.0%

Employment rose by 104,000 in December. Employment growth was led by an increase in employment among youth aged 15 to 24, which recouped losses for this group between July to September of last year (-51,000). Employment for this group rose by 69,000.

Employment among people in the core working ages of 25 to 54 was little changed in December. Throughout all of last year, the employment rate of core-aged women had record highs. On average, 81.0% of core-aged women were employed, the highest annual rate on record since 1976 and 1.3% higher than in 2019. Much of this increase has been among women with young children, with 75.2% of them with at least one child under 6 years old were working at a job or business, up 3.3% compared with 2019.

During the week of December 4^th to 10^th, 8.1% of employees were absent due to illness, up from 6.8% in November. This was due to the rise in cases of influenza and other respiratory. It was higher than the pre-pandemic average of 6.9% for the month of December from 2017 to 2019, but below the record high of 10.0% set in January 2022, when the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was spreading across Canada (not seasonally adjusted).

In December, 9.6% of workers had a hybrid work arrangement. This was little changed from November at 9.4%, but up 6.0% compared with January 2022. The proportion of workers who usually work exclusively at home was little changed at 15.8% in December (population aged 15 to 69, not seasonally adjusted).

In December, the unemployment rate declined 0.1% to 5.0%. This was the third decline in four months and left the rate just above the record low of 4.9% reached in June and July.

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