Vincent Ferrao, a Labour Market Analyst with Stats Canada, says the unemployment rate was down quite a bit last month, compared to a year ago.
“The unemployment rate for the month of May was 6.5 percent. It’s 6.5 despite little overall change in employment for the month. If we compare it with May 2020, a year ago, the unemployment rate was higher than that, it was 10.7 percent.”
Ferrao says there were about 9,500 more people working in the region last month, compared to last May as well, when the country was deep into the pandemic.
“87,000 people were working this May. In April it was about the same, 86,100. However in May 2020, there were 77,500, so we have an increase year over year.”
Ferrao says most the new jobs were in the service sector.
“More specifically healthcare and social assistance. There were just small declines scattered in a few industries. About 64-hundred more people working in service industry and healthcare is about half of that.”
The Cariboo region’s unemployment rate of 6.5 is below Canada’s at 8.2 percent, and BC’s at an even 7 percent.
BC has the third lowest unemployment rate in the country, behind Saskatchewan and Quebec.
Unemployment rates in the provinces
1. Saskatchewan 6.3%
2. Quebec 6.6%
3. BC 7.0%
4. Manitoba 7.2%
5. Alberta 8.7%
6. New Brunswick 9.0%
7. Ontario 9.3%
8. PEI 9.6%
9. Nova Scotia 9.8%
10. Nfld/Labrador 13.4%