In sobering news for rookie Premier Doug Ford, Ontario lost more than 80,000 jobs last month — the equivalent of the population of Peterborough.

That’s the province’s greatest loss of jobs in a Statistics Canada monthly employment survey since the 2009 global recession, though it seems largely due to seasonal fluctuation.

While Ontario’s unemployment rate rose to 5.7 per cent in August — up 0.3 percentage points from July — it remains lower than Canada’s national average of 6 per cent and well under the 8 per cent during the depth of the worldwide slump.

Still, last month’s decline of 80,100 jobs is the sharpest drop since January 2009 when 95,700 jobs vanished during the biggest international financial crisis since the Great Depression.

In a break with tradition at Queen’s Park on the days that Statistics Canada releases monthly job numbers, Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Minister Jim Wilson was not available on Friday.

But in a brief statement, Wilson blamed the grim statistics on the previous Liberal government of former premier Kathleen Wynne even though unemployment has been at a generation-low level for the past year.

“The latest job numbers are a reminder of the Wynne Liberals’ 15-year legacy of scandal, waste and mismanagement,” said the minister, whose Progressive Conservatives were elected June 7.

“While the NDP stood by and propped up the Liberals, the PCs stood up for the people and put forward a plan to get Ontario back on track,” he said.

“We will create and protect jobs by sending the message that ‘Ontario is open for business.’”

NDP MPP Catherine Fife (Waterloo) mocked the Tories for promising to install promotional signage at the U.S. border, saying they clearly don’t have a real plan.

“The neon ‘open for business’ sign on the border is not an economic strategy — in fact, I think it looks somewhat farcical,” said Fife, pointing out that Ford’s unilateral cancelling of hundreds of green energy contracts “certainly does not instill confidence for investors.”

“Mr. Ford’s string of shortsighted decisions and backward priorities compromises confidence in our economy and threatens the continued creation of good jobs in the province,” she said.

Fife denied that the previous government’s decision to raise the hourly minimum wage on Jan. 1 to $14 from $11.60 caused the spike in part-time job losses.

While that wage is set to jump to $15 next Jan. 1, the Tories have pledged to stop that.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which represents 60,000 businesses, last week appealed to the government to scrap the raise and water down the Liberals’ labour reforms.

Rocco Rossi, the chamber’s president and CEO, on Friday expressed concern about “the biggest employment decline in almost a decade.”

“Today’s news reflects what we have been hearing from our members for months — we need to build an economy that connects workers to jobs and this begins with the immediate repeal of Bill 148, the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act,” said Rossi.

“The Ontario business community has made it clear — Bill 148 has led to a substantial decrease in staff hours and capital investment as well as an increased reliance on automation. This dramatic decline in over 80,000 jobs reflects the work that must be done to build a prosperous and competitive province.”

That act instituted paid, job-protected emergency leave days for all workers, increased holiday benefits, mandated equal pay for casual and part-time workers doing the same job as full-time employees, and increased protections for those at temporary agencies.

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TD Bank senior economist Brian DePratto said the jobs report is “definitely not quite as bad as the headline would suggest.”

DePratto said while Ontario shed 80,100 jobs last month, the province gained 60,600 in July, so summertime part-time labour swings played a role.

“Unfortunately, by and large, it looks like statistical noise,” he told the Canadian Press.

Liberal MPP Michael Coteau (Don Valley East) said the Tories risk squandering the gains they inherited.

“Under the previous Liberal government, Ontario had the lowest unemployment rate in almost 20 years and was one of the top three jurisdictions in North America for foreign direct investment,” said Coteau.

“It’s clear that the Conservatives do not have an economic plan to help Ontario’s economy continue to grow.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said the Statistics Canada report “should be a wake up call for the new premier that his anti-business actions over the summer have real world consequences.”

“The premier spent the summer ripping up contracts and telling clean economy companies that Ontario was closed for business,” said Schreiner.

“Putting a sign on the U.S. border is not going to create jobs. Neither is buck-a-beer or ripping up contracts. The only jobs the premier seems interested in creating are those for lawyers given the number of lawsuits involving his government.”

Statistics Canada noted last month’s losses were part-time jobs and offset the previous month’s gains.

“In Ontario, full-time employment held steady compared with the previous month, with year-over-year gains totalling 172,000 (+3 per cent). Part-time employment fell by 80,000 in August, following a similar increase in July,” it said.

That compared to 93,000 part-time jobs lost in the previous 12 months.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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