Employment has slumped further in Prince Albert, according to the latest jobs numbers from Statistics Canada.
About 700 fewer people held jobs in the city this July, compared to the month before. That brought the city’s unemployment rate up to 10.5 per cent.
That rate is still far better than July of last year, when it stood at 12.2 per cent. But Prince Albert’s employment rate, usually considered a better measure of how a city is doing on jobs, is well down from where it was 12 months ago. Now only 59.5 per cent of Prince Albertans aged 15 and older are employed, dropping from the July 2016 figure of 59.6 per cent as more people gave up looking for work.
The province’s economy also continues to struggle. About 5,400 fewer people were working in July than in June. It’s a loss of 1,700 jobs year-on-year.
Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate shot up to 6.6 per cent. That’s not the highest it’s been in recent years, but the rate is now slightly above the Canadian average.
For more on this story, see the Saturday edition of the Daily Herald.
