​October unemployment rate decreases to 3.8%, says labour market planning board

In October, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region decreased by 0.5 percentage points to 3.8 per cent. The region’s unemployment rate remains the second lowest in the province. Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 percentage points to 7.2 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 but the labour force size decreased by 2,500 to 170,300, resulting in the size of population not participating in the labour force to increase by 2,900 people. This also brought the participation rate down by one percentage point to 61.3 per cent.

The region experienced a decrease in overall employment with approximately 1,900 full-time losses and 600 part-time gains.

The number of goods-producing sector employees decreased minimally by 0.5 per cent (-300) last month. Agriculture experienced the biggest percentage gain this month (+500, 3.82 per cent), followed closely by construction (+700, 3.8 per cent). Manufacturing experienced the biggest percentage loss (-600, -2.9 per cent) followed by utilities (-300, -2.6 per cent).

Employment in the services-producing sector also saw decreases by 1.1 per cent (-1,100) last month. With a 600 employment drop, business, building and other support services experienced the biggest percentage loss in October (-12.8 per cent), followed by finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing (-900, -11.7 per cent) and accommodation and food services (-600, -5.6 per cent). However, wholesale and retail trade experienced 600 employment gains (+3.5 per cent), followed by other services (except public administration) (+400, +5.7 per cent) and public administration (+200, +4.8 per cent).

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 2,142.