Image Credit: The Canadian Press

By James Peters / The Canadian Press

Employment Stats

Unemployment low in Thompson-Okanagan, much of B.C.

Jul 5, 2019 | 11:35 AM

KAMLOOPS — The doom and gloom in the B.C. Interior forest sector has yet to have an impact on employment statistics.

According to June totals from Statistics Canada, unemployment was 4.9 per cent in the Thompson-Okanagan at the end of the month. That’s down from 6.6 per cent at the end of June, 2018.

Labour Analyst Vincent Ferrao says much of the employment growth was in part-time work, but he notes the entire province of B.C. is performing well.

“B.C. has a relatively low unemployment rate — other areas of the province, also. Unemployment rate is trending down in several regions of the country.”

Employment in the Thompson-Okanagan region sat at 273,700 at the end of June, compared to 256,200 at the same point in 2018.

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“There are more people working retail and wholesale — so in sales occupations, overall. Professional, scientific and technical services — the sector is up. Information, culture and recreation, as well as business-building and other support services (are also up).”

Across Canada, the economy delivered its strongest six-month stretch of job creation to start a year since 2002 in the first half of this year. The economy generated 248,000 new jobs in the first half of the year, but lost 22-hundred in June.

That bumped up the nationwide jobless rate from 5.4 to 5.5 per cent.