By Kim Mackrael 



  OTTAWA--Canada's labor market continued its recovery in August with the economy adding jobs for a fourth consecutive month. The unemployment rate also moved lower. 


  The latest data indicate Canada has recovered almost two-thirds of the roughly three million jobs that were lost in March and April, when governments imposed sweeping restrictions to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. Economists have warned that employment growth is likely to slow over the coming months. 


  The Canadian economy added a net 245,800 jobs in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, Statistics Canada said Friday, building on a gain of nearly 420,000 jobs in the previous month. Market expectations were for an increase of 250,000 jobs in August, according to economists with Bank of Nova Scotia. 


  The unemployment rate in August was 10.2%, or a drop of 0.7 percentage points from the previous month. The jobless rate peaked at 13.7% in May, following pandemic-induced economic shutdowns that began earlier in the spring. 


  Despite solid gains in recent months, Canada's employment level remains 5.7% below where it was in February, before economic restrictions were introduced. Returning to pre-pandemic levels of employment could take much longer, economists have said. 


  "With provincial reopening plans having largely gone as far as they will go before a vaccine is available, we will be entering a new phase of the recovery where the path higher for employment is slower and potentially uneven," CIBC Capital Markets economist Andrew Grantham said. 


  Mr. Grantham said the recovery could be further challenged if cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, increase in some regions during the autumn and winter months. 


  Statistics Canada said the August gains in employment were concentrated in full-time work, which rose by 205,800, compared with a 40,000 advance in part-time work. Full-time employment now stands at about 94% of pre-pandemic levels, the data agency said. 


  Labor underutilization, a gauge of how many people could work but aren't employed, or are working less than half their usual hours, was 20.3% in August--down sharply from the peak of 36.1% reported in April. Before the pandemic, labor underutilization stood at about 11%. 


  Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com