Unemployment Down in P.G. as Labour Force Declines
Friday, October 11, 2013 @ 9:14 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The unemployment rate in Prince George fell last month compared to September of 2012, but it isn’t because of a swell in new jobs.
The new unemployment rate in Prince George is 6.6%, down from the 6.9% recorded in September of 2012.
Vincent Ferrao of Statistics Canada says the labour force in the region declined from 95,600 in September of 2012, to 87,400. He says while there were slight declines in employment in the natural resource sector and manufacturing, the significant decline in the labour force is the reason why the unemployment rate has improved.
As or the Cariboo region, the rate is now 6.5% down from the 8.2% recorded in the same month a year ago.
B.C’s rate is sitting at 6.7%, down from 6.9% of September 2012.
Nationally, the rate has slipped to 6.9%, down from 7.3% of September 2012.
Comments
What is this report talking about?
It says the unemployment rate in PG is down. Prince George is a city with specific boundaries which are different from “the region”.
I am assuming the region is the Fraser-Fort George Region.
“Vincent Ferrao of Statistics Canada says the labour force in the region declined from 95,600 in September of 2012, to 87,400.”
So, with that number in the labour force, it must mean the Regional District, not the City of Prince George.
How about giving some consistent information, not one piece for one area and another category for another area.
We are continuing to suffer from reporting out info that forces us to compare apples to oranges ……
Terrible!!!!!
Looks like we have been tackling unemployment from all the wrong angles … we just have to get the unemployed to stop looking for work (and maybe leave town) and then our unemployment figures, and by implication, our community will look great … ;)
I am sure it is too much to ask to get a report of the size of the labour force for the Regional District which contains the City of Prince George, for the last 5 years. I would like to see the trends and the spikes. That may give a person a bit of a chance to reach some studied hypothesis of what may be happening.
The above information is useless. Like saying there was heavy traffic in town today as compared to the same day a year ago.
You’re right, and that is a good analogy Gus.
Bottom line is the amount of jobs in the region declined by 10%. If its a seasonal variance we won’t know with the information provided.
I find it odd that more people left the labor pool than the decline in the labor pool. So did the welfare roles increase, or did they retire and go out on their own pensions? If 10,000 left the labor pool, then how do they now provide for themselves?
I suspect if we had all the facts on the table we would see the declines in small business employees and a large portion of the decline in the labor force from the aging population.
So the headline should have read, ‘large portion of workforce retiring, and free enterprise renewal stalled’.
Stats are 90â BS, lol. What I want to know is who is counted as unemployed, I hear that if your ei runs out and you still don’t have a job you are no longer counted as unemployed? This in itself if true would make all the stats wrong!
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