OTTAWA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Canada's unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 6.9 percent in April, following an increase of 0.1 percentage points in March, Statistics Canada said Friday.

With these increases, the unemployment rate has returned to its level of November 2024, which was the highest since January 2017, excluding the years 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the national statistical agency said.

According to the agency, people who were unemployed continued to face more difficulties finding work in April than a year earlier. Among those who were unemployed in March, 61 percent remained unemployed in April, higher than the corresponding proportion for the same months in 2024.

Employment was little changed in April and the employment rate declined 0.1 percentage points to 60.8 percent, said the agency.

Among employees aged 15 to 69, 13.2 percent anticipated that the number of employees at their workplace would decrease over the next six months. The proportion was higher at 18.6 percent among employees in industries dependent on U.S. demand for Canadian exports, said Statistics Canada. ■