Canada's jobless rate soars to 13 pct due to COVID-19 pandemic

Source: Xinhua | 2020-05-09

Canada's unemployment rate soared to 13 percent as nearly 2 million people lost their jobs in April after the country implemented measures to suspend businesses and services amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the government reported Friday.

A total of 1,993,800 people lost their jobs in April, while economists' forecast in March was that 4 million people would lose jobs and the jobless rate would jump to 18 percent, according to Statistics Canada, the country's statistics agency.

Combined with a 7.8-percent jobless rate in March, about 3 million people have been out of jobs in the last two months in the country.