Trump Insists Canada Has 'Big Unemployment.' Here's What the Data Says

President Donald Trump has claimed again that Canada is suffering from "Big unemployment," blaming the immigration policies of Prime Minister Mark Carney's government. Official numbers do not back him up. Canada's jobless rate held at 6.4% in August, below the 7.1% recorded a year earlier, and Trump's earlier assertion that it had reached 10% was false, according to Time.

The remarks come during a trade standoff. Canada's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods began earlier this month, and U.S. import bans on some Canadian products, mostly alcohol and dairy, are set to start Tuesday. Trump, who has threatened to annex Canada, also signed an order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America." Formal negotiations stopped at the end of August with no significant progress reported. Carney, meanwhile, is working to strengthen international alliances to lessen dependence on the U.S.

Canada did shed 42,000 jobs in August, a 0.2% drop, according to its Labor Force Survey, as public-sector payrolls shrank for a third consecutive month. University of Toronto economist Joseph Steinberg said slowing population growth may be a factor, but that Canada "does not currently have an unemployment problem" and that its immigration levels are low; permanent resident admissions were about 328,000 in 2025, versus 419,000 the year before. The U.S. rate stood at 4.1% in August, but experts caution that the two countries measure unemployment differently, including age cutoffs and job-search requirements.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Time’s reporting. Read the full story at Time →