Canada's unemployment rate fell in June to 7.2 per cent, from 7.3 per cent in the previous month, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

The agency said 7,300 net jobs were added during the month.

Analysts had expected the economy to create about 5,000 jobs in June, consistent with an economy that was expanding but slowly.

June was the second consecutive month of weak jobs growth after two months - March and April - in which an stunning 140,000 new jobs were added.

But economists had long regarded the two outsized months as anomalies and that job growth would even out in subsequent reports.

A survey of employers released this week found that slightly fewer expected to hire full-time workers in the second half of this year than for the same period in 2011.

Unemployment was up in London-St. Thomas, Waterloo Region and Brantford.

(The Canadian Press)