Toronto's unemployment rate is at its highest point since the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is where experts say the job market is headed

Nearly 380,000 Torontonians were searching for a job in November as the city’s unemployment rate reached a level not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 380,000 Torontonians were searching for a job in November as the city’s unemployment rate reached a level not seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data, released by Statistics Canada earlier this month, showed that approximately 379,000 Torontonians were looking for jobs in November equating to an unemployment rate of 8.1 per cent.

It is the highest Toronto’s unemployment rate has been since January, 2022 when many COVID-19 restrictions were still in place.

The 8.1 per cent of residents who are unemployed also puts Toronto’s jobless rate among the highest in Ontario, behind only Windsor at 8.7 per cent.

Ontario’s unemployment rate as a whole in November was 7.6 per cent.

"What's happening in Toronto is similar to what's happening across Canada and that was the deliberate plan of the Bank of Canada when they started increasing interest rates back in 2022," Jim Stanford, Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, told CTV News Toronto in an interview. "Their judgement was that unemployment was too low at that point in time and they wanted to have a bigger cushion of unemployed workers as a way of bringing down wage demands and inflation. So, what's happening in Toronto is not unique."

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