​May unemployment rate drops to three per cent, says labour market planning board

In May, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region continued to decrease by 0.5 percentage points to three per cent. This is the lowest the unemployment rate has dipped since November, 2022. Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point to 6.9 per cent, both unadjusted for seasonality.

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

The region’s overall population increased by 300 in May; whereas, the labour force size decreased by 1,000, resulting in the size of population not participating in the labour force to increase by 1,300. Thus, the participation rate dropped by 0.4 percentage points to 59.8 per cent.

Although the region experienced a decrease of approximately 200 in total employment size, about 700 full-time employment gains were recorded in May.

The number of goods-producing sector employees decreased by four per cent (-2,400) that month. Agriculture experienced the biggest percentage loss again (-1,400, -13.1 per cent), followed by manufacturing (-1,400, -6.2 per cent) and utilities (-100, -1.4 per cent).

On the other hand, forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas continued to experience the biggest percentage gain (+200, +9.5 per cent), followed by construction (+400, +2.3%).

Employment in the services-producing sector increased by 2.2 per cent (+2,200) in May. With plus-1,200 employment increase, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the biggest percentage gain (+14.3 per cent), followed by professional, scientific and technical service (+900, +13.4 per cent) and accommodation and food services (+800, +10.7 per cent).

However, educational services (-600, -7.7 per cent) experienced the biggest percentage loss that month, followed by business, building and other support services (-400, -6.1 per cent) and health care and social assistance (-1,300, -5.6 per cent).

“Although our unemployment rate has dropped again, the seasonality of the sectors does not bode any big surprises” says Dana Soucie, executive director of the labour market planning board. “The health-care sector has seen gains in previous months, and will be monitored for any downward trends as seen this month.”

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 reaches 2,875.