By Tom Parkin
December 8th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Full time jobs fall for a second successive month
Seasonally adjusted full time employment, Canada, Nov 203 to Nov 2025
Headlines of 54,000 jobs added in November had Prime Minister Mark Carney celebrating last Friday’s jobs report. But even the shallowest dive below the headline quickly shows why union leaders weren’t joining his cheery mood.
After Carney called the report “great news for Canadians” the role of buzz killer fell to Unifor president Lana Payne, who pointed out the report found 9,400 full-time jobs were cut in November.
Longshore and Warehouse Union president Rob Ashton raised concerns about workers being pushed into “side hustles” amid full-time job losses.
26,000 workers abandon job market
And Friday’s jobs report very clearly shows part-time jobs cycling up as full time work falls, not a trend to be cheered.
StatsCan shows full-time workers fell by 9,400, tumbling from 17,237,500 in October to 17,228,100 in November. Part-time jobs increased by 63,000, rising from 3,844,400 in October to 3,907,400 in November.
November was the second consecutive month of full-time job losses. In October, 18,000 full-time jobs were cut.
Labour market participation also fell in November as 26,000 workers gave up on the job market.
Labour force shrinks as part-time work rises
Nov 2023 to Nov 2025, seasonally adjusted
Ontario leads decline in full-time jobs and participation
The biggest drop in participation was in Ontario, where 19,900 workers abandoned the labour market, 77 per cent of the national decline.
Ontario full-time jobs fell by 6,900 positions, 74 per cent of the national loss. The number of Ontario part-time jobs increased by 13,000 only 21 per cent of the national increase.
At 78.7 per cent, Ontario now has Canada’s third lowest participation rate among people aged 15 and 64. Only Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were lower. Quebec continues to have the highest labour market participation rate in Canada at 81.4 per cent.
19,900 Ontario workers abandon search as full time jobs tank
Retail and manufacturing cut jobs, construction gains
Job trends in major industries again show Ontario is driving the troubling results.
Ontario retail stores cut 29,400 jobs in November, while shops in the rest of Canada increased staff by 600. Ontario manufacturing cut 7,400 jobs last month but only 1,900 in the rest of the country. Nationally, construction employment increased by 4,500 jobs but only 1,700 in Ontario.
Employment in selected sectors, Nov 2023 to Nov 2025 seasonally adjusted:
Canadian workers face a range of economic risks, and are being being lulled into complacency by politicians who want to celebrate victories that haven’t been won.
Worker complacency could cause unions to pull back when they need to lean in.
Carney seems intent on spending a lot of money on companies. The question is whether the focus is on workers. Alarm bells are ringing after Algoma Steel cut 1,000 jobs just days after hundreds of millions in subsidies were given. Carney excluded the union from that deal.
This is the moment when workers need the government to hear that there should be “no talk about us without us,” ensuring their unions can put workers at the central focus of government decisions.
Leave a Reply