A woman wearing a face mask walks past a closed store in Toronto, Canada, on Feb. 4, 2022.Photo:Xinhua

Canada's employment fell by 200,000 and the unemployment rate rose 0.5 percentage points to 6.5 percent in January, according to Statistics Canada on Friday.

With the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 and stricter public health measures implemented, capacity limits or closures had been re-introduced in retail stores and high-contact settings such as restaurants, bars, concert halls and gyms, Statistics Canada explained the reasons of the weak employment last month.

Youth and core-aged women, who are more likely than other demographic groups to work in industries affected by the public health measures in place, saw the largest impacts. Youth saw declines in both part-time and full-time work. Employment fell among women in the core working ages of 25 to 54, entirely in part-time work. Statistics Canada indicated that all of the employment decline was among private sector employees.

A man wearing a face mask walks past a closed store in Toronto, Canada, on Feb. 4, 2022.Photo:Xinhua

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate last month saw the first increase since April 2021. The total number of unemployed people increased by 106,000, or 8.6 percent, to 1.34 million, said Statistics Canada.

People walk past a closed hair salon in Toronto, Canada, on Feb. 4, 2022.Photo:Xinhua

 
Especially, the unemployment rate for youth rose 2.5 percentage points to 13.6 percent. Women aged 25 to 54 also saw an increase of 0.6 percentage points to their unemployment rate of 5.3 percent.