Ontario Premier Doug Ford is celebrating a surprise boost in his province’s employment figures, the day after his government tabled a pessimistic fiscal update projecting persistent unemployment.
Figures released by Statistics Canada show employment was up by 55,000 in Ontario during October, dropping the unemployment rate marginally from 7.9 to 7.6 per cent.
Canada’s overall unemployment rate remains below Ontario’s at 6.9 per cent.
The 55,000 new jobs added in Ontario made up the vast majority of the 67,000 added nationwide last month.
“I’m pleased to see Ontario leading the nation in job creation, with 55,000 new jobs added last month despite the challenges we are facing from tariffs and economic uncertainty,” Ford wrote in a social media post.
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The jobs bump comes the day after Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy tabled his Fall Economic Statement, a fiscal update that suggested high unemployment will persist for years.
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Projecting the next four years, the government revised job creation down from May this year by a total of 1,000 — with 3,000 fewer in 2025 and 8,000 fewer than expected in 2027.
The numbers for 2026 and 2028 have been updated upwards.
The unemployment rate was revised to worsen from 7.6 to 7.8 per cent and is predicted to remain higher than the 2025 budget forecast through to 2028.
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“Employment growth is projected to ease further in 2026 to 0.4 per cent as economic growth continues to be impacted by the ongoing trade conflicts and the effect of the associated uncertainty on investment and hiring,” the document said.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy said the figures in his fiscal update were drawn from other forecasts.
“We just reflect the private sector forecasts,” he told reporters. “But you take that information, you have to have a plan. And we ran on a plan back in February, got elected as a majority, we tabled our vision for the province.”
Unemployment figures have been a key attack on the government by opposition politicians, with the Ontario NDP repeatedly branding Ford as a “jobs disaster.”
Ontario Liberal MPP Stephanie Bowman also attacked Ford’s record after the fiscal update was tabled.
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“The government side comes to this house each and every day blaming U.S. tariffs for all the woes in Ontario when in fact unemployment has been rising for nine quarters under this government,” she said in the legislature.
“That’s about seven quarters before U.S. tariffs.”
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