B.C. unemployment rate rises
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: July 15, 2009 10:42 AM
After two months of job growth, B.C. lost 4,100 jobs in June, and with more people looking for work the unemployment rate jumped to 8.1 per cent.
Forestry, fishing and mining continued to shed jobs, but the biggest shift was the service sector where most of the net job loss for the province took place. Gains were made in information, culture and recreation employment, as well as finance, insurance, real estate, health care and social assistance jobs.
The North Coast-Nechako and Cariboo regions had the largest job loss of about 10 per cent, while Thompson-Okanagan jobs were down 7.8 per cent. Kootenay, which had near-record low unemployment of 2.5 per cent in June 2008, saw its unemployment rate climb to 8.7 per cent a year later.
The Vancouver Island-Coast region has lost 3.1 per cent of its workers in the three months up to June, but its unemployment rate of 6.6 per cent is now the lowest in the province. Continued job losses pushed the unemployment rate to 7.3 per cent in B.C.'s most populous region, Mainland-Southwest.
Management and administration jobs were down 7.1 per cent, public administration down 5.3 per cent, and transportation and warehousing jobs were down 4.1 per cent for the month, according to Statistics Canada's labour force survey.
newsroom@surreyleader.com
v2
