Unemployment Slips in Prince George
Prince George, B.C. – The unemployment rate in Prince George last month was 4.6%, down a full percentage point from the 5.6% rate set in August of last year.
“The difference is not quite statistically significant” says Stats Canada’s Vincent Ferrao “We can call it a slight decline.” Last year, there were 48,800 people in Prince George who were working, and last month that number had climbed to 52,300 people with jobs.
For the Cariboo region (which includes Prince George) a similar story as the unemployment rate dipped to 5.7%, down from the 6.6% recorded a year ago. “That is a statistically significant change” says Ferrao. He notes there were 88 thousand people in the Cariboo working last month, up from the 82,400 who had jobs in August of 2013.
Provincially, the rate is sitting at 6.1%, down from the 6.6% recorded in August of last year.
Nationally, the change was slight, with the August rate sitting at 7.0%, down from the 7.1% recorded in the same month a year ago.
Comments
I think the Statistics Canada numbers come out quarterly and 250news reports on it each time. I think 250news should mention in their quarterly articles that Statistics Canada calculates the unemployment rate based on their own labour market survey. The unemployment rate is not calculated using Employment Insurance numbers. Statistics Canada considers you to be unemployed if you want a job but are unable to find a job, it doesn’t matter whether or not you are receiving EI benefits.
I suppose if you have a high school student working 2 days a week in the Mall, that would be considered **working**, unless they don’t count part time workers.
Number of workers seems pretty high considering that the population on the last Federal Census (2011) was 71,974 people. 18,135 under the age of 19 and 8,375 over the age of 65. Everyone in between would have to be working in order to get the numbers they are quoting. Not likely.
I think the numbers are more about how many people are on EI compared to recent numbers, less on EI, less unemployed?? not really just less drawing EI. amazing how the numbers can be shuffled around to suit the reports.
What ever formula they use, it is confusing, and it seems that, that is the way they like it.
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