By Tom Parkin
October 10th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
It will be pretty hard for Ontario PC Premier Doug Ford to today distract from 47,000 fewer jobs in Ontario in September, but he’ll come up with something. Or maybe hide until he makes his Thanksgiving pumpkin pie video.
Opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles has routinely pivoted from Ford’s distractions to his jobs record.
Ford has been under opposition attack for having no jobs plan despite an unemployment rate that has been on a steady rise since spring 2023. Opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles has routinely pivoted from Ford’s distractions to his jobs record, which has seen 172,000 jobs disappear in the past three months.
Stiles has also seized on recent comments from Ford when he told an elite downtown Toronto business luncheon club that workers just need to “look harder” to find a job.
A classic Ford distraction.
The premier has fought back by pouring out whiskey bottles, doing ice cream photo ops, reviving his fantasy tunnel plan, and picking a fight with municipalities over speed cameras, a tactic that seems to be backfiring. Ford has done everything but acknowledge the province has a severe jobs problem and workers are paying the price for no job creation strategy.
Ford’s unemployment rate up, participation rate down
Ontario’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 7.9 per cent in September. While some may try to divert the discussion to Trump’s tariffs or immigrants taking jobs, neither fits the data.
Ontario’s unemployment rate has been steadily rising for more than two years, long before Trump’s election. And it now continues to rise even as Ontario’s population barely even rises, adding only 10,000 people over age 15 in September after adding just 7,000 people in August. Those are increases of just 0.07 and 0.06 per cent, respectively. Ontario’s total population increase thus far in Ontario has been just 0.77 per cent. Ontario’s population has essentially stopped growing this year.
Diversions aside, the problem is in Ontario’s sick economy, which has been hit by manufacturing and construction job losses. Two of eight Ontario vehicle assembly plants have not build a vehicle since 2023. And construction is down from the 2022 housing bubble bust. Those trends and a have rippled into the service economy, especially retail jobs as consumers pull back. And it’s all been deepened by Trump’s tariffs and a mood of malaise.
Ontario’s jobs gloom is showing up in the labour participation rate, the percentage of people 15 years or older who are employed or looking for work. In September a seasonally-adjusted 64.8 per cent of Ontarians were participating in the labour market, down from 66.0 per cent in April 2023.
In September, construction was down by 51,000 jobs since the peak in July 2023 and down 32,000 jobs since the same month in 2023.
In manufacturing, 44,000 jobs have been lost since its peak in July 2023 and down 7,000 jobs from the same month in 2023.
Retail jobs have nosedived, dropping 98,000 jobs since June, after finally climbing back above a jobs peak set back in May 2022, the month after the Bank of Canada raised interest rates from historic lows, busting the real estate bubble.
Another anti-Ford rant in a series from Tom Parkin, long-time NDP propagandist. Yes, unemployment is up and Tom would have readers believe that it is entirely Ford’s fault, without any analysis of the causes of the unemployment problem in Ontario. However, intelligent readers can probably determine that Trump’s trade war with Canada is behind much of the stagnation in manufacturing. Housing is in a serious slump–affordability is a key problem in attracting buyers to the marketplace but confidence is also a major contributor with worried Ontarians unlikely to invest in a place to live. And despite their relatively lower cost, the large surplus in condo units is a result of this type of housing not being attractive as a lifestyle choice; I wonder if Parkin, or any of our political leaders at any level live in a shoebox overlooking the Go-tracks (rhetoric question)? Similarly, Ontarians worried about the economic future are unlikely to open the taps on retail spending with employment slumps the result. Does the massive increase in TFW also play a part?