A surprise jump in the unemployment rate in November drove the loonie lower on Friday and raised odds among markets and some big banks for a second consecutive oversized interest rate cut from the Bank of Canada.

Canadian employers collectively added some 51,000 jobs in November, Statistics Canada said, but the unemployment rate jumped to 6.8 per cent as more people looked for work.

That brings the jobless rate 0.3 percentage points higher than in October and to its highest levels since January 2017, outside the COVID-19 pandemic years.

Across the country, job gains were in mainly full-time work and in the public sector last month, StatCan said.

Both the magnitude of the rise in the unemployment rate and the number of job gains last month topped the consensus of economists’ expectations.