Unemployment in the Hamilton area, which takes in Burlington, Hamilton and Grimsby, rose to 7.6% in October, Statistics Canada says. That is up 0.7 percentage points from 6.9% in September, and it puts the region above the Toronto area and Ontario as a whole.
The figure covers the whole Hamilton census metropolitan area, the region the federal statistics agency uses for local job numbers. The survey doesn't report Burlington on its own, so this is a regional rate, not the city's.
The October number is not a single month. Local results from the Labour Force Survey, Statistics Canada's monthly household survey on jobs, are published as three-month moving averages, so this one blends the three months ending in October. They are also seasonally adjusted to strip out regular swings like summer hiring. The agency averages the months because local samples are relatively small and single-month numbers bounce around.
Even on that smoothed basis, 7.6% is the highest Hamilton-area rate in the 25 months of figures going back to October 2024. A year earlier, in October 2025, it stood at 6.9%, the same as this September.
The comparison with nearby regions shifted in a month. In September, the Hamilton area matched the Toronto area and Ontario and sat well below Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo. In October it moved above all three, while the national rate held steady. The Ontario and Canada rates here are the same three-month averages from the same Statistics Canada table, not the single-month headline rates.
| Area | September 2026 | October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Hamilton area (incl. Burlington) | 6.9% | 7.6% |
| Toronto area | 6.9% | 7.1% |
| Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area | 7.7% | 7.1% |
| Ontario | 6.9% | 7% |
| Canada | 6.5% | 6.5% |
Last fall the rate went the other way: it eased from 7.2% in September 2025 to 6.9% that October.
The regional figures are in Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey table 14-10-0459-01, updated with each monthly release. The next update will cover the three months ending in November.
