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Canadian Press file photo
By Shaun Penner
Below provincial rate

Grande Prairie region’s unemployment rate down to 7.5% in August

Sep 10, 2021 | 7:47 AM

The unemployment rate for the economic region that includes Grande Prairie and the Peace Region dropped to 7.5 per cent in August, continuing the downward trend of the region’s jobless rate over the last several months.

The unemployment rate in the region, which also includes Jasper, Banff, Rocky Mountain House and Athabasca, declined from 8.2 percent in July and 8.9 per cent in June. That marks the fifth consecutive month of declines, after sitting at 10 per cent in March of 2021.

On a year-over-year comparison, the region’s unemployment rate is down from 12.3 per cent from August of 2020. The rate of 7.5 per cent also brings the region in line with pre-pandemic levels, when unemployment sat at 7.2 per cent for March of 2020.

The 7.5 per cent unemployment rate was the third lowest in Alberta for August 2021. The Lethbridge-Medicine Hat region recorded the lowest rate at 4.9 per cent, followed by Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake at 6.4 per cent.

The highest rate in the province is in Calgary at 10 per cent, with Red Deer (9.8 per cent), Camrose-Drumheller (8.8 per cent) and Edmonton (8.4 per cent) rounding out Alberta.

As for the province as a whole. Alberta’s unemployment rate was 7.9 percent in August, down from the 8.5 per cent recorded the previous month.

Alberta’s unemployment comes in as the fourth highest in the country, behind Newfoundland and Labrador (12.1 per cent), Prince Edward Island (10.6 per cent) and New Brunswick (9.3 per cent).

These figures come as Statistics Canada says the economy added 90,000 jobs nationally in August, the third consecutive monthly increase.

The national unemployment rate fell to 7.1 per cent for the month, compared with 7.5 per cent in July, bringing the rate to the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic last year.

Gains were concentrated in full-time work and in the hard-hit service sector, led by gains in accommodation and food services.

Statistics Canada says gains in the service sector pushed employment there back to pre-pandemic levels for the first time, although there is still some areas that are lagging, such as retail and food services.

The agency says overall employment is within 156,000 jobs, or 0.8 per cent, of the level recorded in February 2020 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s the closest the country has been to recouping all the jobs lost during the first wave of COVID-19.

(With files from the Canadian Press)

by Shaun Penner