Employment in Northeast B.C. grew by 1,300 jobs in November, pushing the regional unemployment rate down to 4.1%, according to the latest estimates from Statistics Canada.
There were 37,300 employed and 1,600 unemployed in the region in November, according to the labour force survey released Dec. 3. Month-over-month, the jobs count is up from October, when 36,000 were employed and 2,200 were unemployed.
Year-over-year, however, employment is down from last November, when 39,900 were employed. That’s due to a drop in the region’s estimated labour force, down from 41,900 last year to 38,800 last month, as well as a 6.3 percentage point drop in the labour participation rate, from 76.5% last year to 70.2% this year.
Unemployment at this time last year was posted at 4.8%, with 2,000 unemployed.
Unemployment in B.C., November 2021:
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North Coast and Nechako - 7.1
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Lower Mainland Southwest - 5.9
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Cariboo - 5.5
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Kootenay - 5.3
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Vancouver Island and Coast - 4.4
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Thompson-Okanagan - 4.3
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Northeast - 4.1
B.C. added 4,600 jobs overall last month. Unemployment remained at 5.6% — no change from October.
The province saw big gains in jobs within health care (+8,300 jobs), professions associated with the tech sector (+7,900 jobs), and the hospitality sector (+5,600).
The biggest loss was felt in the construction industry (-9,500 jobs), which will likely see a bounce back in Statistics Canada’s next report as rebuilding efforts get underway on flood-affected regions of southern B.C.
Meanwhile, Canada added 154,000 jobs last month while the national unemployment rate dipped 0.7 percentage points to 6%. That’s within 0.3 percentage points of the country’s pre-pandemic unemployment rate in February 2020.
— with files from Business in Vancouver
Email Managing Editor Matt Preprost at editor@ahnfsj.ca
