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Nearly one million Canadians applied for jobless claims last week, representing almost 5 per cent of the labour force, according to a senior government official with knowledge of the data.

The new figure of 929,000 includes the half-million unemployment applications first reported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a press conference Friday, but also includes claims made over the weekend, the person said on condition they not be identified because the data is not yet public.

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The speed and extent of the jump in jobless claims is unprecedented; the previous record for an entire month was 499,200 in 1957, according to Statistics Canada data.