OTTAWA, July 5 -- Canada's unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.4 percent in June, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The unemployment rate has trended up since April 2023, rising 1.3 percentage points over the period, the national statistical agency said.

There were 1.4 million unemployed people in the country in June, an increase of 3.1 percent from the previous month.

Of those who were unemployed in May, just over one-fifth had transitioned to employment in June, indicating that people are facing greater difficulties finding work in the current labor market, the agency said.

Among the unemployed, 17.6 percent had been continuously unemployed for 27 weeks or more in June, up 4 percentage points from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate rose to 11.9 percent for core-aged Black Canadians. The rate was up to 12.3 percent for Black men and to 11.4 percent for Black women, said Statistics Canada.

  - Xinhua