Metro Kelowna holds the highest unemployment rate in Canada for the third straight month at 9.3%
More people are working in Metro Kelowna, but even more are looking for jobs.
As a result, the Central Okanagan’s largest city has Canada’s highest unemployment rate for the third consecutive month.
Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for July found Metro Kelowna’s jobless rate last month was a nation-high 9.3%, which was up a tenth of a percentage point from June. The city’s unemployment rate has increased for five consecutive months.
The positive news from Friday’s report is Metro Kelowna added 3,300 jobs in July. The reason the jobless rate jumped is because 3,600 more people were looking for work and the metropolitan area’s population increased by only 300 people. Metro Kelowna has added 6,300 jobs since April, but the number of people entering or re-entering the labour force has jumped by 8,700.
Employment numbers in Metro Kamloops have mirrored those in the Central Okanagan. The Tournament Capital’s jobless rate was 3.8% in February, but it increased from March through June and stayed at 6.5% in July.
The provincial picture in July was more positive than the one in the Thompson-Okanagan, as B.C. added 17,800 jobs in July, including 3,100 in the manufacturing sector. B.C.’s unemployment rate dropped for the second straight month, to 6.2%.
“Over the past three months, B.C. has created nearly 51,000 jobs,” B.C. Minister of Jobs and Economic Growth Ravi Kahlon said in a press release. “So far in 2026, we’ve seen strong employment growth in health care and the social assistance sector, as well as construction and educational services.
“These gains reflect continued investment in the health-care system, skills training and the infrastructure needed to support major projects and growing communities throughout the province.”
The opposition Conservatives, meanwhile, pointed to the high unemployment numbers in the Thompson-Okanagan and in Abbotsford-Mission, where the jobless rate was 8.3% in July. It also remains concerned about youth employment, which has fallen by 51,000 workers since 2019.
“Government should be focused on creating the conditions for private-sector investment and job growth,” Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew said. “We need an economy where young people can find work, businesses can hire, and every region has the opportunity to prosper.”
Nationally, Canada added 75,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate hit a two-year low of 6.4%, but economists say there's still a long road ahead before the Bank of Canada considers tightening policy.
Statistics Canada said the country is now up 181,000 jobs since April, and 196,000 from a year ago.
“It’s stronger growth than we were maybe anticipating a few months ago,” CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham said. “It is consistent with what we’re seeing in terms of the GDP figures that the Canadian economy is recovering, even though we do see that there’s more slack in the economy to go and this recovery will need to continue before we really have to worry about Bank of Canada interest rate hikes.”
Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate is down half a percentage point from a year ago as more people who were looking for work had been successful at finding jobs than this time last year.
“The labour market is not yet strong,” RBC assistant chief economist Nathan Janzen said in a note to clients. “The unemployment rate is still higher than normal, and wage growth slowed in July. But it has been improving despite still significant U.S. tariff uncertainty and higher energy prices.”
Average hourly wages were up 2.8% in July year over year, though it decelerated from 3.3% growth in June.
Desjardins managing director Royce Mendes said the labour market still has a long road to recovery.
“The latest jobs numbers add to the evidence that businesses are finding ways to navigate the current trade-related uncertainty,” Mendes said, adding a Bank of Canada interest rate hike isn’t likely to come until 2027.
“That said, even with the big gains seen in July, the labour market isn’t back to full health. As evidence of that, the annual pace of wage growth decelerated further … right around the rate of inflation.”
The Bank of Canada held its key policy rate steady at 2.25% for the sixth straight time at its meeting in mid-July.
Financial market odds were about 96% in favour of a hold from the central bank at its Sept. 2 meeting, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
The unemployment rate among young people remained virtually unchanged in July at 12.6%, Statistics Canada said, which is down 1.9 percentage points from a year ago.
“This is definitely a better summer than what we’ve seen in the last two years for young people trying to find jobs,” Grantham said.
— with files from The Canadian Press
