It will not be enough to make any difference in the labour shortage being felt around the region, but in May Greater Victoria’s unemployment rate slipped into third place among Canadian cities.
According to Statistics Canada’s monthly labour force survey, the region’s unemployment rate rose to 3.6 per cent from 3.1 per cent in April. At the same time last year, the unemployment rate was 4.0 per cent.
That means Victoria now has the third-lowest unemployment rate in Canada, behind Quebec City at 2.8 per cent and Sherbrooke Que. at 3.4 per cent.
The national agency said over the last 12 months the region has seen a significant loss of jobs in the retail and wholesale trade sector, which lost 7,800 jobs since May of 2018, while finance, insurance and real estate shed 3,800.
Balancing those losses were strong gains in transportation and warehousing, which added 4,100 positions over the last 12 months and public administration, which added 2,700.
Greater Victoria’s labour force has shrunk overall in the last year, as there were 199,400 eligible workers in May, down from the 207,500 in May last year.
Nationally, the Canadian economy showed signs of strength in May as it added 27,700 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since comparable data become available in 1976.
Statistics Canada said the unemployment rate fell to 5.4 per cent, compared with 5.7 per cent in April as the number of people looking for work fell sharply.
Economists on average had expected the addition of 8,000 jobs for the month and an unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent.
The better-than-expected increase in the number of jobs — made up entirely of full-time employment as there was no change in the number of part-time jobs — followed a record 106,500 jobs that were added in April.
However, CIBC senior economist Royce Mendes noted that the details weren’t as good as the overview suggested.
The number of self-employed workers rose 61,500, while the number of employees fell by 33,800 including a drop of 13,100 public sector employees and 20,700 private sector employees.
Mendes also noted that hours worked were down for the month.
“So despite having a healthy increase in headline employment, hours worked, which actually translates more directly to GDP, were actually down,” he said.
