The head of Workforce Windsor-Essex says June was a concerning month for the Windsor-Essex area in terms of the region's unemployment rate.
Justin Falconer, the Chief Executive Officer of Workforce WindsorEssex, says the numbers they don't want to see go up are going up, and the numbers they don't want going down are going down.
The jobless rate increased to 11.2 per cent in June, up from 10.8 per cent in May. This increase puts the Windsor area back to the highest unemployment rate in Canada.
Falconer says for the first time in 48 consecutive months the region had zero population growth, resulting in a loss of 2,700 jobs.
He states that there were some really big losses in the region, including in the manufacturing sector, healthcare, transportation, and warehousing.
Falconer says there were some slight positives from last month.
"We had 800 job gains in wholesale and retail trade, we had 700 jobs gained in each sector, one of them is finance insurance and real estate, and the other is professional scientific and technical services, so there were some gains."
He says job postings are also seeing a decrease.
"We were down 14 per cent last month, so last month we had just over 3,000 active job posts on our board in the month of June, and that was down 14 per cent. So we are seeing some losses there. The number of hiring companies also went down, so we also count all of those companies that do the hiring, it was down seven per cent."
He adds that the local region is feeling the pinch from the trade disputes with the United States.
"Across Canada, 8.8 per cent of all workers, working-aged persons, work in U.S. dependant trade occupations. That number is near double in our area, so we're twice as likely to be experiencing the disruptions, and the negative consequences of having that dispute ongoing with the U.S. government."
Falconer says 96 per cent of all of Windsor-Essex's exports go to the U.S., putting all of that work at risk.
Statistics Canada says the national unemployment rate dropped a tick to 6.9 per cent in June as the economy added 83,000 jobs, mostly in part-time work.
-with files from AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides