Employers unexpectedly shed 43,200 jobs last month, pushing the jobless rate up 0.2 percentage points to 8.6 per cent following two months of moderate growth.
The news stunned economists, who had expected about 10,000 new jobs in October.
"The good news is we're not staring into the abyss as we were in February-March of this year," Thomas Caldwell, CEO of Caldwell Securities, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel. "I think recovery has started, but it ain't over till it's over. We still have a long way to go."
All of October's job losses were in part-time positions, the numbers released by Statistics Canada on Friday showed. While full-time employment increased for the second consecutive month, over the past year, full-time employment has fallen at a faster rate than part time work.
Full-time employment has fallen 2.7 per cent, compared with a 0.7-per-cent drop in the part-time sector.
Since the labour market peaked a year ago, employment is down 2.3 per cent, with the bulk of the 400,000 jobs lost occurring during the first five months of the labour downturn.
Since that peak, employment has fallen in most industries, with the steepest declines in manufacturing, natural resources, construction, and transportation and warehousing.
At the same time, there were job increases in information, culture and recreation as well as in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing.
Adult women aged 25 and over and youths aged 15 to 24 accounted for all of the employment decline in October.
Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador experienced the most notable employment losses in October. In all other provinces, employment was little changed.
Unemployment in Alberta rose 0.4 percentage points to 7.5 per cent. Since October 2008, that province's employment has fallen by 3.3 per cent (-68,000), the steepest rate of decline among all provinces.
The report showed that wages are remaining steady. Average hourly wages were 2.9 per cent higher in October compared with last year's levels. That's above the rate of inflation and a jump from the previous month's increase of 2.3 per cent.
BNN's Michael Kane noted that Canada's jobless rate is still well below the United States and many parts of the world.
"But it was a disappointment because we have seen so many data points that suggested that the economy was improving," Kane said. "We have to remind ourselves that it is an economic reality that after a recession technically ends - such as we think this one has - that job loss does continue."
South of the border, the U.S. Labor Department announced Friday that the unemployment rate there surpassed 10 per cent for the first time since 1983.
The U.S. jobless rate rose to 10.2 per cent in October from 9.8 per cent in September, after shedding a net total of 190,000 jobs in October.
There are now nearly 16 million people in the U.S. who can't find jobs.
Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the latest Canadian figures are further confirmation that is been "a year from hell" for Canada's workers.
"Since last fall hundreds of thousands of people have seen their full-time jobs disappear, their families have been decimated and their communities hollowed out," Georgetti said in a CLC news release Friday.
"Compared to this time last year we are in terrible shape. People have had to trade full-time, family-supporting work for part-time jobs and self-employment."
Georgetti called for reform to the Employment Insurance program, noting that fewer than half of unemployed workers qualify for EI, while those who do receive an average of about $50 a day.
"That's just not right," he said.
Here's what happened with the jobless rate provincially (previous month in brackets):
- Newfoundland 17.0 (15.3)
- Prince Edward Island 12.0 (11.8)
- Nova Scotia 9.3 (9.5)
- New Brunswick 8.5 (8.1)
- Quebec 8.5 (8.8)
- Ontario 9.3 (9.2)
- Manitoba 5.8 (5.3)
- Saskatchewan 5.3 (4.6)
- Alberta 7.5 (7.1)
- British Columbia 8.3 (7.4)
