Fewer working in Kelowna, but jobless rate is still Canada’s second-lowest
Kelowna continues to have Canada’s second-lowest unemployment rate even though there were fewer people working in the region last month compared to December.
The Central Okanagan’s jobless rate in January was 4.6%, the same as in December, employment data released today from Statistics Canada shows.
Only Quebec City has a lower rate, at 4.7%. The national jobless rate was 9.4%, up from 8.8% in December, with unemployment rising for the second straight month.
The jobless rate has spiked largely because of COVID-19 containment measures in Quebec and Ontario, which have forced the closure of many non-essential retail and service sector businesses, the federal agency says. Total national employment is now at its lowest level since last August.
The Canadian economy lost 213,000 jobs in January wiping out employment gains made in the fall of 2020.
“Employment losses were highly concentrated in Central Canada,” StatsCan said in Friday’s release. "Employment rose in Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and held steady in British Columbia."
January's losses were concentrated in Ontario and Quebec where lockdowns and restrictions closed businesses and schools to rein in rising COVID-19 case counts.
Steep declines in part-time work, particularly among teenagers, and in service-industry jobs, including retail, overshadowed small upticks in full-time workers and in goodsproducing sectors.
Brendon Bernard, an economist with job-posting website Indeed, said retail could quickly rebound if the pandemic is brought under control.
In the Central Okanagan, the jobless rate remained at 4.6% after six months of steady declines from July through December.
Greater Kelowna's unemployment rate in March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered many businesses and caused widespread layoffs, was 5.9%. Unemployment in the Central Okanagan peaked last year at 10.2% in June.
Although last month's jobless rate was equal to that of December's, the number of people with jobs in greater Kelowna actually fell, from 114,400 to 113,000.
But the unemployment rate was unchanged because the population grew slightly and because the labour force — the number of people either working or actively looking for work — fell from 119,900 to 118,400.
Shrinkage in the labour force that's not accompanied by a population decline usually means people have either become frustrated in their unsuccessful job search and paused their search for employment, or have returned to some type of schooling.
The jobless rate in other B.C. cities is 7.8% in Abbotsford/ Mission; 7.8% in Vancouver, and 5% in Victoria.