Prince George, B.C. –  Statistics Canada released its monthly job stats for May this morning and it included some good news for Prince George.

Vincent Ferrao, labour market analyst with Stats Can, says there were 1,400 more full-time jobs year over year last month – a three per cent increase.

“We had 47,900 people working compared with 46,500 a year ago and that brought the unemployment rate down to 5. 9 per cent compared to 6.6 per cent in May 2016.”

Provincially, he says the news was also positive noting there was 99,000 new jobs – a bump of 4.2 per cent compared to a year ago.

“A lot of that is in full-time work which was up 66,000, part-time 33,000. And the unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent compared to 6.1 per cent in May 2016.”

The good news continued nationally where Ferrao says employment was up 1.8 per cent which translated into 317,000 new jobs – 221,000 full-time.

He says the job surge lowered the unemployment rate to 6.6 per cent nationally compared to 6.9 per cent in May 2016.