​January unemployment rate increases to 4.8%, says labour market planning board

In January, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region increased by 0.4 of a percentage point to 4.8 per cent. The provincial unemployment rate increased by 0.2 of a percentage point to 5.8 per cent, both unadjusted for seasonality.

That’s the word from the Four County Labour Market Planning Board.

Last month, both the region’s overall population and labour force size increased by 400; whereas, the size of population not participating in the labour force remained unchanged. Thus, the participation rate increased by 0.1 percentage point to 58.8 per cent.

That said, there was a decrease of approximately 200 in total employment size. The number was a result of about minus-2,900 full-time employment losses compensated partly by around plus-2,600 part-time employment gains.

The number of goods-producing sector employees increased in January. Manufacturing experienced the biggest gain (+1,600, +9.8 per cent). However, forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying and oil experienced the biggest percentage loss (-200, -6.3 per cent), followed by construction (-400, -2.4 per cent) and utilities (-200, -2.3 per cent).

Employment in the services-producing sector decreased in January. With 1,500 employment losses, educational services experienced the biggest percentage loss (-16 per cent), followed by wholesale and retail trade (-2,100, -9.2 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (-400, -7.7 per cent).

On the other hand, public administration experienced the biggest percentage gain this month (+700, +24.1 per cent), followed by health care and social assistance (+1,900, +10.7 per cent) and accommodation and food services (+700, +9.3 per cent).

“Seeing our population and labour force size increase is a positive sign we are attracting the workforce we need to fill local vacancies,” says Dana Soucie, executive director of the planning board. “Although we see a loss in full-time employment, it is offset with the gain in part-time employment which may support those who require flexible schedules to remain in the workforce.”

Current job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased over time since the COVID-19 pandemic and can be found at www.connect2JOBS.ca. The current number of job postings reached 2,990.