Greater Victoria’s unemployment rate moved up to 3.8 per cent in September from 3.5 per cent the month previous but still managed to record a modest overall gain in jobs.
The labour force — made up of people working and those seeking work — rose to 237,500 last month from 231,800 in August, Statistics Canada said Friday in its monthly labour-force survey.
A total of 228,500 were employed in September, an increase from 223,800 the previous year.
Sectors that experienced job growth in the capital region included health care and social assistance, with 37,500 workers, up from 31,900 in September 2022. Public administration numbers climbed to 31,700 from 26,100 a year earlier.
Job numbers declined in construction to 18,700 last month from 20,200 in September of last year. Professional, scientific and technical service numbers slid to 22,600 from 23,700 in September 2022.
Provincewide, the unemployment rate was almost flat, coming in at 5.4 per cent last month, up from 5.2 per cent in August.
Brenda Bailey, minister of jobs, economic development and innovation, said the province is posting strong economic growth with the addition of 26,000 jobs in September.
“So far this year, B.C. has added 51,300 jobs, while our unemployment rate saw little change at 5.4 per cent, and remains better than the national average.”
The overall jobs picture for the province showed that job numbers increased in construction and in science and technical services
Women’s full-time employment increased by 17,000, the most of any province, which Bailey attributed to B.C.’s focus on adding more affordable child-care spaces.
Nationally, the 91原创 economy added more jobs than expected last month, but with the gains driven by a seasonal spike in education employment and an increase in part-time work, economists say the job market is weaker than it looks.
The unemployment rate continued to hold steady at 5.5 per cent for the third month in a row.
“While the headline figures will be grabbing most of the attention, we’d caution on getting too excited. Almost all the gains were in the historically volatile education sector,” said TD director of economics James Orlando in a client note.
“Furthermore, most of the job gains were in part-time employment, causing the number of hours worked to decline. These details should throw some cold water on a seemingly hot jobs report.”
More people were working in educational services, and transportation and warehousing, while jobs were shed in finance, insurance, real estate rental and leasing, information and recreation, and construction.
Canada’s labour market has cooled over the past year as interest rates have risen, job vacancies have fallen and the unemployment rate has edged up.
Still, economists say the job market has held out better than expected. “Around a year ago, I would say that conventional wisdom turned to the view that the economy was going to go through at least a mild downturn, if not something a bit more serious than that. And I would say overall, things have held up better than expected,” said Douglas Porter, BMO’s chief economist.
Even with the recent rise in the unemployment rate, it remains below pre-pandemic levels. The unemployment rate averaged 5.7 per cent in 2019, the year before COVID-19 upended economic trends.
