By Greg Fry

Kamloops unemployment rate rises in February

Mar 9, 2018 | 9:26 AM

KAMLOOPS — Bad news on the unemployment front in Kamloops.

Labour Market Analyst Vincent Ferrao with Statistics Canada says the unemployment rate rose locally to 10.8 per cent in February, up from 9.3 per cent in January and way up from 7.6 per cent in February 2017.

He attributes the rise to a year-over-year increase in the workforce.

“The number of people working went from 65,100 to 71,300. However there were more people in the labour market searching for work. The labour force went from 71,000 last year to almost 80,000 this year,” Ferrao says.

“So, that brought the number of unemployed people up and pushed the unemployment rate up.”

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However, the employment picture as a whole in B.C. was much better with B.C. continuing to lead the country with the lowest unemployment rate in Canada at 4.7 per cent. That was down a tad from 4.8 per cent in January.

Nationally, the unemployment rate nudged down to 5.8 per cent in February from 5.9 per cent in January.