The Cariboo wrapped up 2017 on a positive note on the unemployment front.
Vincent Ferro is a Labour Market Analyst with Stats Canada…
“The unemployment rate ended the year at 6.3 percent. That’s 1.1 percentage points from December of 2016, it was 7.4 percent at that time. So it was 7.4 to 6.3.”
Ferro says the actual number of people working was about the same however, so the drop in the unemployment rate was mainly due to fewer people actually looking for work.
He says health care and social assistance were the strongest sectors…
“We have 12, 500 people working in that sector. A year ago it was 83-hundred. There were some increase in retail and wholesale trade from 14,400 employed last month, compared to 12,500 in December of 2016. Declines, a bit in natural resources, from 7400 to 5400. And transportation and warehousing, from 5600 to 4400.”
BC continues to have the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 4.6 percent and only PEI had a higher employment growth rate.