Jobless rate drops in January, employment up over 12 months

NEWS — Employment rose by just over 29,000 across the country in January due to an increase in full-time work, Statistics Canada said today.

The unemployment rate dropped to 7 per cent. StatsCan said employment increased 0.8 per cent or 146,000 over the past 12 months. During the same period, the employment rate fell .03 per cent to 61.6 percent “as employment grew at a slower pace than the population.”

The Vancouver Sun reported today that Abbotsford had the highest unemployment rate in B.C, at 8 per cent, while Vancouver showed a small improvement to 6.3 per cent compared to 6.4 per cent in December.

Kelowna’s rate climbed to 7.3 per cent from 7 percent, while Victoria was at 4.9 percent, said the Sun. The December rate for Kelowna was 6.9 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent in Kamloops, according WorkBC.

CTV News quoted BMO Capital Markets chief economist Doug Porter as saying that, “While no ball of fire, today’s solid comeback represents a nice recovery from the ugliness in last month’s Canadian employment report.

“Notably, though, the unemployment rate at 7.0 per cent is precisely unchanged from three months ago and from a year ago. In other words, the underlying trend in job growth is just firm enough to keep up with labour force population growth — no better, no worse.”