Ontario's unemployment rate fell in September as the growth in full-time jobs trumped the shrinkage in part-time employment.

In Statistics Canada's labour force survey released Friday, Ontario gained 61,500 full-time jobs last month while losing 48,900 part-time positions.

The increase of 12,600 jobs, when balanced against a population increase and labour force decrease, left the province's unemployment rate at 9.2 per cent, down from 9.4 per cent in August.

Vincent Ferrao, a Statistics Canada analyst, told ctvtoronto.ca that growth in self-employment accounted for about 10,000 of the net new jobs. Public sector growth offset private sector losses to account for the other 2,600 new jobs, he said.

"It would be nice to see more private sector jobs," Ferrao said.

Nationally, the unemployment rate fell to 8.4 per cent in September, down from 8.7 per cent in August. The national economy gained 91,600 full-time jobs and lost 61,000 part-time jobs.

"This is the sound an economy makes when an economy recovers," said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, referring to the increase in full-time jobs. "Whether it can be sustained is another question ,and we're debating here whether we've really seen the peak in the unemployment rate already."

Statistics Canada had this caution: "Despite September's gains, full-time employment has fallen by 395,000 or 2.8 per cent since the employment peak in October 2008."

Ontario has now experienced three straight months of job growth, with 39,000 jobs gained in that period.

Ferrao said that self-employment accounts for about 24,000 of those 39,000 jobs. The private sector added 10,000 new positions and the public sector 5,000, he said.

Ontario also remains one of the provinces hit the hardest by the recession that began about a year ago.

"Despite this increase, Ontario has suffered the fastest rate of employment losses since October (-2.9 per cent), mostly in full time and in manufacturing, construction and a number of service industries," Statistics Canada said.

Ontario had 6,525,100 people in the workforce in September. About 5.3 million were listed as full-time employees.

Here are the unemployment rates for some selected Ontario cities (the August rate is in brackets):

  • Toronto - 9.8 (10.1)
  • Hamilton - 9.1 (8.7)
  • Kingston - 6.9 (6.8)
  • Kitchener - 9.3 (9.9)
  • London - 11.2 (11.1)
  • Oshawa - 9.2 (9.9)
  • Ottawa - 4.8 (5.2)
  • St. Catharines-Niagara - 9.9 (9.9)
  • Windsor - 14.3 (14.8)

With files from The Canadian Press