Canada’s unemployment rate has hit a record high of 13.7%, the highest the jobless rate has been since 1982.
Regionally, the Kootenays unemployment rate, reached 14.8%, the highest in all of British Columbia. B.C.’s unemployment rate currently stands at 13.4%.
Canada’s economy added 289,600 jobs in May as businesses started to reopen.
Statistics Canada said the increase in the unemployment rate is a result of more people looking for work, particularly people who have worked in the past year.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March, over 3-million Canadian jobs have been lost.
The unemployment rate pre-pandemic in February was 5.6%.
