The unemployment rate in the Cariboo region looked very familiar last month.
Vincent Ferrao, a Labour Market Analyst with Stats Canada, says it’s been that way for a while.
“The unemployment rate for the Cariboo region was 6.6 percent. Compared to a year ago it was also 6. 6 percent, and last month the rate was also 6.6.”
Ferrao says there were roughly 46-hundred more people working in the region last month compared to a year ago, but he says that was offset by more people looking for work as well.
“We’re at 63 percent participation rate in February, and a year ago we were at 60.8 percent.”
Ferrao says most of the employment gains were in one area.
“We have an increase mostly in educational services year over year, but we also have smaller gains in construction and healthcare and social assistance. We had a small decline in wholesale and retail.”
Nationally, the rate increased slightly to 5.8 percent.
Ferrao says that too was mostly due to more people attempting to join the workforce.
“At the national level we have employment growing between January and February, it went up by 41,000. That would have been seen as really prominent news a while back, but now we’re seeing faster growth in the working age population, for the population 15 and over. That increased by 76,000, so employment is not growing as fast as the working population.”
BC’s jobless rate was 5.2, 4th lowest out of the provinces.
Here is a breakdown of all the provinces:
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- Manitoba 4.5%
- Quebec 4.7%
- Saskatchewan 5.0%
- BC 5.2%
- Nova Scotia 6.0%
- Alberta 6.2%
- Ontario 6.5%
- New Brunswick 6.9%
- Prince Edward Island 7.0%
- Newfoundland and Labrador 10.2%
