Toronto's unemployment rate is getting completely out of hand

Looking for a job in Toronto? Join the queue, because as of this month, the city's unemployment rate has surged to a jaw-dropping 8.8 per cent, up from 8.6 per cent just one month earlier.

Statistics Canada's latest report on the labour force from coast to coast shows that the nation's largest city is faring the worst of any provincial capital, and of almost any Canadian city, period.

Only the census metropolitan areas of Oshawa and Windsor had higher rates of joblessness, of a shocking 9.1 per cent and 10.8 per cent, respectively. (Windsor, as many know, is one of the top three cities in Canada that are most impacted by U.S. tariffs due to its substantial auto manufacturing sector.)

The numbers in some rural locales, though, are even more dire.

One chart from the government agency shows that an astounding 27.2 per cent of the working-age population in Northern Manitoba is now said to be unemployed, 13.4 per cent in Northern Saskatchewan, 13.1 per cent in both Newfoundland and Labrador (outside of St. John's) and Nunavut (aside from Iqualuit), 11.1 per cent in P.E.I. (aside from Charlottetown) and 11 per cent in Northern Alberta, 10.2 per cent in Northern B.C.

It is worth noting that StatCan adds an important note about its methodology for coming up with this particular regional table, which shows the latest seasonally-adjusted three-month moving averages for the proportion of residents relying on Employment Insurance.

"As a result of a temporary measure in effect from April 6, 2025 to July 12, 2025, the unemployment rates are adjusted by one percentage point (to a maximum of 13.1 per cent) in all Employment Insurance (EI) economic regions," it states.

This, the agency explains, "ensures that no region has an unemployment rate less than 7.1 per cent. Regions with an unemployment rate of 13.1 per cent or higher keep their actual rate."

With this different equation, Toronto's unemployment rate is listed as a scarier 9.7 per cent, coming only after the above places, along with Oshawa (listed as 9.9 per cent) and Windsor (12.3 per cent) out of 62 regions total.

Regardless of which of the two sets of numbers is considered, the data, which is for May 2025, is beyond concerning, showing thousands and thousands more jobs are being lost each month in Toronto and many other parts of the country. 

The national average now sits at seven per cent and rising — the highest in more than seven years, save for the COVID era — amid a long-running cost-of-living crisis that doesn't seem to have an end in sight, and on the precipice of an economic recession and potentially even a housing market crash.