The global economic slowdown has delivered a blow to Canada's employment market.
And the sting of job losses was felt the most in British Columbia, which lost almost half of all Canadian jobs last month.
Statistics Canada says of the 30,400 jobs that disappeared across Canada, 14,500 were in B.C., pushing up the provincial jobless rate four-tenths of a point to an even seven per cent in July.
Victoria played its part in the job reduction.
A slowdown in construction appears to be behind Greater Victoria shedding 3,000 jobs last month, a move that raised the region's unemployment rate to 5.6 per cent.
In June, the capital region's unemployment rate was at 5.3 per cent. However, the region is still ahead of last year when it posted a 6.4 per cent unemployment rate in July.
The construction industry has seen an eight per cent drop in employment over the past 12 months, with 12,700 people working in it in July of this year compared with 13,800 in July 2011. Overall, the goods-producing sector, which includes construction, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing, employed 21,200 last month compared with 24,800 at the same time last year.
The capital region's service sector on the other hand remained basically unchanged with losses in the information, culture and recreation industries being offset by increases in business, building and support services over the past 12 months.
The services-producing sector had 164,200 people employed last month compared with 163,600 at the same time last year.
B.C. Jobs Minister Pat Bell said he isn't daunted by the data, pointing out that 9,600 full-time positions were created since June and the drop in employment was due to the loss of part-time work.
Bell said that since February, almost 47,000 people have found work in the province.
The minister said every province is seeing labour market fluctuations and he's confident job creation will resume in B.C. soon.
The country shed a surprisingly steep 30,400 jobs last month - the first major hit in nearly a year for what had been a mostly positive employment record.
The July jobs report pushed the national unemployment rate up a tenth of a point to 7.3 per cent.
Economists had been warning that employment growth was likely to moderate in the second half of 2012, but still had pencilled in a modest pick-up of about 6,000 new jobs for July.
Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter predicted August's performance may be as bad, noting that Statistics Canada had still to register education layoffs that normally occur during the summer.
"This is not good. It basically reinforces the picture that Canadian employers are turning very cautious," Porter said. "I don't want to read too much into any one month's news, but we have a clear slowdown in employment. Perhaps the most telling statistic is that is that the unemployment rate made absolutely no progress in the past year."
PROVINCES
Canada's national unemployment rate was 7.3 per cent in July. Here's what happened provincially (previous month in parentheses):
Newfoundland 12.8 (13.0)
PEI 10.2 (11.3)
Nova Scotia 9.4 (9.6)
New Brunswick 10.0 (9.5)
Quebec 7.6 (7.7)
Ontario 7.9 (7.7)
Manitoba 5.7 (5.2)
Saskatchewan 5.0 (4.9)
Alberta 4.6 (4.6)
British Columbia 7.0 (6.6)
CITIES
Seasonally adjusted, three month moving average une month moving average unemployment rates for major cities rates for major cities
(Figures may fluctuate widely because they are based on small statistical samples.)
St. John's, N.L. 7.1 (7.3)
Halifax 6.9 (6.8)
Moncton, N.B. 6.7 (6.9)
Saint John, N.B. 8.6 (7.8)
Saguenay, Que. 6.4 (6.1)
Quebec 5.1 (5.0)
Sherbrooke, Que. 8.2 (7.7)
Trois-Rivieres, Que. 8.2 (8.2)
Montreal 8.5 (8.8)
Gatineau, Que. 6.1 (6.1)
Ottawa 6.4 (5.9)
Kingston, Ont. 6.1 (5.9)
Peterborough, Ont. 7.4 (8.2)
Oshawa, Ont. 8.4 (8.2)
Toronto 8.5 (8.6)
Hamilton, Ont. 7.5 (7.3)
St. Catharines 8.2 (8.1)
Kitchener-Waterloo 7.1 (6.9)
Brantford, Ont. 7.7 (8.4)
Guelph, Ont. 4.5 (5.1)
London, Ont. 8.6 (8.5)
Windsor, Ont. 9.5 (9.5)
Barrie, Ont. 8.0 (7.9)
Sudbury, Ont. 7.3 (7.4)
Thunder Bay, Ont. 6.1 (5.7)
Winnipeg 5.5 (5.4)
Regina 4.1 (4.0)
Saskatoon 5.6 (5.5)
Calgary 4.7 (4.8)
Edmonton 4.5 (4.4)
Kelowna 6.1 (7.3)
Abbotsford 6.6 (7.2)
Vancouver 6.8 (6.4)
Victoria 5.6 (5.3)
