The unemployment rate in British Columbia increased to 6.1% in May, according to Statistics Canada data released June 6.
This increase of 0.3 percentage points from 5.8% in April was due in part to a total loss of 1,900 jobs in the province. This wasn’t all bad news, however; while the province did lose 11,100 part-time jobs, this was largely offset by a growth of 9,200 full-time positions.
The unemployment rate across Canada grew by 0.1 percentage points to 7.0 while the number of jobs increased.
“The real story here is underlying employment growth is pretty soft, even if you have that decent headline gain of nearly 26,000 [in jobs across the country],” Benjamin Reitzes, senior economist at BMO, told Business in Vancouver, pointing out that the job gains nationwide reflect a loss of 29,100 full-time jobs offset by a growth in part-time work.
“Average growth over the past year has weakened and pretty much every metric you look at is pretty soft unfortunately for Canada right now from a jobs perspective and job growth is only up half a percent from a year ago, which is averaging 7,100 per month over the past year [job growth], which is pretty poor.”
The unemployment rate remains the lowest in Saskatchewan (3.7%) and Alberta (4.6%). The highest rate was found in Newfoundland and Labrador, at 12.7%.
