The state of unemployment in Canada is worsening in Canada, according to a new survey.

According to the “State of the Unemployed” survey released Wednesday by Express Employment Professionals, the average length of unemployment in Canada worsened for a fourth straight year.

Canada’s national average unemployment length was to 17.9 months in 2017, two months longer than the same mark in 2016’s survey. The Canadian average was 12.6 months in the first survey conducted in 2014.

“The poll confirms that unemployed Canadians, while personally optimistic and keen to get ahead – can’t. After four years of doing this poll, we know that optimism is up but the unemployed job stats are trending down. This should be a wake up for us all,” Express Employment Professionals CEO Bob Funk told BNN.ca.

Conditions in the U.S., meanwhile, improved last year with the average unemployment length dropping to 23.5 months from 26.3 in 2017.

Opportunities also appear to be getting scarce, with 55 per cent of respondents on both sides of the border stating they had not been on a job interview within the last month.

According to the survey, 60 per cent of Americans and 56 per cent of Canadians stated their economies were headed in the wrong direction.

While American respondents were more convinced that the current government would have a positive impact on creating jobs (39 per cent, as opposed to 34 per cent of Canadians), the Trump administration also eclipsed Trudeau’s liberals in expectations of a negative impact on jobs (35 per cent, versus 22 per cent of Canadians).