OTTAWA, May 11: Canada shed 5,200 jobs in April, but the country’s unemployment rate held firm at an historic 33-year low of 6.1 per cent as more people quit the labour force, the government said on Friday.

This follows strong employment gains since September 2006.

The Statistics Canada said full-time job losses of 14,900 eclipsed the creation of 9,700 part-time positions, with massive gains in the natural resources industry not enough to make up for ongoing manufacturing cutbacks.

Overall employment in the goods-producing sector has fallen 0.7 per cent so far this year.

But Canadian employment growth for the first four months of the year was stronger in Canada compared to the US.

And while employment growth in the service sector paused in April, it has added an estimated 182,000 workers since the start of the year.

Jacqui Douglas, an economist with TD Securities, said: “The key unemployment numbers came in lower than everyone was expecting.”

”But if you look at the details of the report and the long-term trends, the Canadian employment market is just as strong as it always has been,” she told AFP.