Canada adds 12,000 jobs in September but unemployment rate rises to 7.1%

Canada's economy added 12,000 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate increased slightly to 7.1 per cent because more people were also looking for work.

Most of the jobs were part time, Statistics Canada said Friday, with74,000 new part-time positions created during the month,offset by a loss of62,000 full-time jobs.

The drop-off in full-time jobs was the largest monthly decline sinceOctober 2011. "Other details of the report are also weak," Scotiabank noted after the numbers came out: "hours worked dropped and the headline is bolstered mainly by gains in self-employed workers."

The jobless rate ticked up to 7.1 per cent. In the same period last year, the rate was 6.9 per cent. "That's thefirst time since2009that the unemployment rate has been above year-ago levels," BMO economist Doug Porter said, "not good."

But the overalljobsnumber was slightly better than economists had been expecting.

The average forecast in asurvey of 20 economists polled by Bloomberg was for Canada to have createdbetween 8,000 and 10,000 jobs during the month.

New jobs weren't spread evenly across the country, however.

Jobs were added in:

• British Columbia.
• Alberta.
• Manitoba.
• Nova Scotia.
• Saskatchewan.
• Prince Edward Island.

Employmentfell in:

• Ontario.
• Newfoundland and Labrador.

All in all, Canada's economy has now added161,000 jobs in the past 12 months, an increase of 0.9 per cent, the data agency said.