​April unemployment rate decreases to 4.2 per cent, says labour market planning board

In April, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region decreased by 1.2 percentage points to 4.2 per cent. This is the largest percentage drop of all economic regions in Ontario, and the region now sits at the second lowest unemployment rate in the province.

Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.6 per cent, both unadjusted for seasonality.

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

In April, the region’s overall population increased by 300 although the labour force size decreased by 3,200 people, pushing the number of people not in the labour force in the region up by 3,600 last month to 120,600 people. This drew down the region’s participation rate by 1.2 percentage points to 58.7 per cent.

The region experienced a decrease of 900 people in overall employment, with approximately 1000 full-time losses and no changes in part-time employment from the previous month.

The overall employment number in the goods-producing sector increased slightly by 0.8 per cent (+500) in April, with the biggest percentage gain seen in manufacturing (+2,000, +11.2 per cent), followed by utilities (+1,300, +10.3 per cent).

On the other hand, employment in construction experienced the biggest percentage decrease last month (-2,200, -11.4 per cent), followed by agriculture (-200, -2.5 per cent).

Overall employment in the services-producing sector saw a decrease of -1.4 per cent (-1,500) last month. With -1,100 drop in employment, transportation and warehousing experienced the biggest percentage loss this month (-28.2 per cent), followed by information, culture and recreation (-1,100, -16.4 per cent) and health care and social assistance (-1,700, -8.3 per cent).

Professional, scientific and technical services (-600, -5.6 per cent), public administration (-100, -2.3 per cent) and other services except public administration (-100, -1.4 per cent), also saw employment losses.

On the other hand, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the biggest employment gains again in April (+1,400, +17.3 per cent), followed by business, building and other support services (+400, +7.7 per cent) and accommodation and food services (+500, +6.8 per cent).

Current job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased overtime since the
pandemic and can be found at www.connect2JOBS.ca. The current number of job postings exceeds 1,370.