The Cariboo region’s jobless rate was up quite a bit last month compared to a year ago.
Vincent Ferro, a Labour Market Analyst with Stats Canada, says it jumped up to 6.8 percent, compared to an even five percent in September of 2018.
It was also the highest it has been since February of 2018 when it was 7.3 percent.
Despite all that though, Ferro says there were actually more people working in the region…
“82,000 people were working this September compared with 81,300 a year ago. However, the labour force went up and that pushed the unemployment rate up. There were 2,400 more people in the labour force. A small fraction of that, 700, found work and 17-hundred were still looking for work.”
Ferro says there were increases in retail and wholesale trade, as well as the transportation and warehousing sectors.
In terms of declines, Ferro says there were fewer people working in construction and manufacturing.
BC and Quebec shared the lowest unemployment rate in the country last month at 4.8 percent.
That is up from 4.2 percent in September of 2018.