The B.C. job market took a big hit last month, reversing nearly all the gains made in May and June .

The province shed 16,300 jobs in July, while unemployment ticked up 0.3 percentage points to land at 5.9 per cent, according to data released Friday from Statistics Canada.

Only Alberta (-16,800 jobs) lost more jobs than B.C. among all the provinces.

The nation as a whole lost 41,000 jobs and unemployment remained static at 6.9 percent, indicating more people were leaving the workforce altogether.

"We expect the stagnation in labour force growth to continue, which will keep the unemployment rate from rising too high, despite weak labour demand," TD senior economist Leslie Preston said in a note.

B.C. job losses were led by construction (-7,600 jobs) and education services (4,200 j

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