December unemployment rate increases to 3.6%, says labour market planning board
In December, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region increased by 0.4 percentage points to 3.6 per cent. The region’s unemployment rate is now the lowest in the province. Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate remained unchanged in December at 6.8 per cent, both unadjusted for seasonality.
That’s the word from the Four County Labour Market Planning Board.
Last month, the region’s overall population increased by 400 and the labour force size increased by 700 to 170,000. This also brought the region’s participation rate up slightly by 0.1 percentage point to 61 per cent.
The region experienced a slight increase of 100 in overall employment with approximately 3,400 full-time losses and 3,500 part-time gains.
The number of goods-producing sector employees further decreased by 2.8 per cent (-1,800) in December, with the biggest percentage loss in the agriculture sector (-1,600, -12 per cent). Manufacturing saw losses of 900 employment (-4.6 per cent), followed by utilities (-300, -2.9 per cent).
On the other hand, employment in construction increased again this month by 600 people (+3 per cent).
Employment in the services-producing sector saw increases of 1.9 per cent (+1,900) last month. With 800 additional employment, information, culture and recreation experienced the biggest percentage gain (+15.7 per cent), followed closely by educational services (+700, +12.5 per cent).
Wholesale and retail trade (+1,600, +8.6 per cent), public administration (+100, +2.6 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (+100, +2.5 per cent) also experienced employment gains in December.
However, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing saw the biggest percentage loss in employment (-600, -9.5 per cent), followed by other services except public administration (-700, -8.6 per cent), and business, building and other support services (-300, -7.5 per cent).
“The unemployment rate has slightly increased showing some positive signs,” says Dana Soucie, executive director for the planning board. “However, we have moved into the lowest rate in Ontario and are still seeing pockets of in-demand occupations going unfilled in certain areas and sectors of the region.”
Current job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased over time since the pandemic and can be found at
www.connect2JOBS.ca. The current number of job postings reaches 1,461.
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