Peterborough jobless rate rises to 5.6%

2,500 more people were working locally in September compared to a month earlier

Peterborough’s jobless rate rose in September but still remains below the national and provincial averages.

Peterborough’s unemployment rate in September was 5.6 per cent, up from 4.8 per cent in August, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

While a few months ago Peterborough had the lowest unemployment rate of Canada’s 34 census metropolitan areas, it’s now the 16th lowest.

Guelph, Ont. now has the lowest rate at 3.6 per cent, while St. John’s, N.L. remains with the highest rate at 9.6 per cent.

Nearby, Oshawa’s jobless rate rose to 5.6 per cent in September from 4.9 per cent in August, Kingston’s fell to 5.5 per cent from 6 per cent while Barrie’s fell to 5.8 per cent from 6.7 per cent in August.

The national unemployment rate fell to 5.9 per cent from 6 per cent in August while Ontario’s jobless rate rose to 5.9 per cent from 5.7 per cent in August.

Even though Peterborough’s jobless rate has risen, there’s actually more people working locally because the labour pool expanded dramatically in September.

Peterborough had 65,400 people employed in September, up 2,500 from August and also 2,600 more than in September 2017.

Peterborough’s adjusted labour force stood at 69,300 in September, way up from 66,200 in August and from 67,400 in September 2017.

Of those 65,400 were employed and 3,900 were unemployed, compared to 62,800 and 4,600 a year ago.

Peterborough’s labour force participation rate (the proportion of people who are either employed or unemployed but looking for work out of the total working-age population) was 65.2 per cent in September, up from 62.3 per cent in August and from 64.1 per cent a year ago.

The local rate remains a little lower than the national average participation rate of 65.7 per cent.

The figures are for the Peterborough census metropolitan area, which includes the city, the four surrounding townships of Cavan Monaghan, Selwyn, Douro-Dummer and Otonabee-South Monaghan, along with Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nations.

Statistics Canada jobless figures are based on surveys adjusted to a three-month rolling average. Because of its size, Peterborough has a smaller sample size than the other cities which Statistics Canada warns can cause variability in the sampling.