No monthly change to local jobless rate

The unemployment rate remained flat in southern Alberta in October, according to new figures released by Statistics Canada on Friday.

Joblessness in the Medicine Hat-Lethbridge region sat at 8.7 per cent last month, up one-tenth of a point compared to September. That’s the lowest of any region in Alberta, but

2.3 percentage points higher than the same time last year.

Alberta’s overall rate fell by one percentage point to 10.7 per cent from earlier this fall.

A total of 23,000 jobs were added, about one third in the goods-producing sector as gains in oil and gas, manufacturing and construction offset losses in agriculture as harvest concluded.

Most new service jobs were in general trade, transportation, finance and social sectors.

Alberta Minister of Jobs, Trade and Economy Doug Schweitzer said that after four straights month of job growth about 253,000 jobs lost to the pandemic have returned.

Rates fell everywhere in the province except the Camrose-Drumheller region, which recorded the highest monthly rate at 12.6 per cent.

Major centres of Calgary and Edmonton fell to 11.3 and 12 per cent, respectively.

Wood Buffalo (Ft. McMurray) also dropped from double-digits to sit at 9.9 per cent.

Statistics Canada considers specific figures for Medicine Hat unreliable considering the size of the sample.

Alberta’s rate was the second highest in the country behind Newfoundland and Labrador at 12.8 per cent.

Saskatchewan led the country in terms of lowest rate at 6.4 per cent. The national average is 8.9 per cent.

Nearly one-quarter of unemployed Canadians have been without work for six months or more, with Statistics Canada reporting a spike in their numbers in October even as the economy eked out another month of overall job growth.

Almost 450,000 were considered long-term unemployed last month, meaning they had been without a job for 27 weeks or more, with their ranks swelling by 79,000 in September and then 151,000 more in October.

Those unemployed longterm now make up 24.8 per cent of Canada’s total, who numbered 1.8 million in

October as the wave of shortterm layoffs in March in April extended into the fall.

The jumps in September and October are the sharpest over more than 40 years of comparable data, and have pushed long-term unemployment beyond what it was just over a decade ago during the global financial crisis.

More men than women have been out of work for an extended period, and younger workers make up a larger share of the ranks of the country’s long-term unemployed than they did in the last recession.

Counting those who want to work but didn’t look for a job, a group not included in official unemployment figures, there are about 1.27 million Canadians who have been jobless for at least half a year, down from the 1.3 million in September.

“And they will continue to come down,” said Mikal Skuterud, a labour economist from the University of Waterloo, who has closely tracked long-term joblessness during the pandemic.

The worry, he said, is the drop down is not going be as sharp as the rise that it might resemble Nike’s famous swoosh logo.

The longer those people are out of work, the more difficult it will be for them to find a new job. Those that do are likely to earn less than before.