The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll on the Cariboo region’s jobless rate.
Vincent Ferrao, a Labour Market Analyst with Stats Canada, goes over some of the numbers…
“There were just under 75 thousand people working this July, and in July of 2019 we had 84,300 people working so there is a decline there of just under 10,000, 96-hundred.  The decline was in full-time work.”
Ferrao says most of those declines were in two sectors…
“Looks like natural resources was one sector which had job losses, followed by accommodation and foods.  Natural Resources lost 33-hundred jobs, accommodation and food services about 26-hundred.”
Ferrao says that pushed the unemployment rate up to 10.2 percent in July.
That compares to just 5.4 percent in July of 2019 before COVID, although it is down slightly form the 10.7 percent recorded in June.
The Cariboo’s unemployment rate is also lower than both the provincial and national rates.
Ferrao says BC’s rate was 11.1 percent, down from just 4.5 a year ago when it was the lowest or near the lowest in the country.
Manitoba’s rate is now the lowest at 8.2, followed by Saskatchewan at 8.8 and Quebec at 9.5 percent.
Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest at 15.6 percent.
Canada’s unemployment rate is 10.9 percent.