Following slight declines in June and July, employment increased by an estimated 27,000 in August. Since March, monthly employment growth has averaged 9,000, much slower than the average monthly growth of 44,000 from September 1999 to February 2000.

Despite the gain in employment in August, a large increase in the number of people participating in the labour force (+86,000) pushed the unemployment rate up 0.3 percentage points to 7.1%.

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