Canada’s unemployment rate fell to 6.4% in November, the lowest in more than 30 years, Statistics Canada said today.

The unemployment rate hasn’t been that low since December 1974, when the jobless rate stood at 6.0%.

The October jobless rate was 6.6%.

StatsCan said the economy churned out 30,600 new jobs last month.

Economists had been forecasting about 20,000 new jobs would be created and had expected the jobless rate to be unchanged.

StatsCan said November’s new jobs brought the total growth in employment to 250,000 in the past 12 months.

Construction accounted for much of the new job growth, especially in Ontario and British Columbia. There was also healthy job growth in accommodation and food services, and in educational services.

Employment fell in the finance, insurance and health care fields.

Factory jobs increased by 6,800 last month, at least temporarily reversing a long trend of job losses in the manufacturing sector. In the past year, almost 100,000 factory jobs have disappeared as the country’s exporters grappled with the effects of a high dollar.

StatsCan said full-time employment grew by more than 50,000 jobs, while almost 20,000 part-time positions were lost. Most of the new jobs were in the private sector.

British Columbia’s jobless rate fell a fifth of a percentage point to 4.9% as the B.C. economy added 18,000 new jobs, leading employment growth among the provinces. In the past year, B.C. has added 90,000 new jobs.

Ontario’s unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage points to 6.1% as fewer people were looking for work.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a jump in manufacturing jobs helped to lower the jobless rate 0.2 percentage points to 15.0% – still the highest in the country. Job growth was reported in every province except Nova Scotia.

The job market continues to be tight in Alberta, which again had the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 4.1%. Average wages in Alberta have risen 6.7% in the past year, well above the national average of 3.9%.

South of the border, the unemployment rate in the United States held steady at 5.0% in November as 215,000 new jobs were created.

That was the biggest show of job creation in four months – evidence that the U.S. economy is recovering from the job losses caused by three damaging hurricanes.