B.C.’s unemployment rate rose 1.9 percentage points in May from April to 13.4% as more people started looking for work, but the province did see a net increase of 43,300 new jobs – will full-time employment in the service industry leading the way.
Statistics Canada released its May data for the country’s labour market situation on Friday, and it showed that B.C. actually gained 55,100 new full-time employment positions last month, pushing the provincial total to 1.8 million full-time jobs.
The province did see a slide in part-time employment, however, losing 11,800 positions to reach 388,100 part-time employment positions in May. That means that, last month, B.C. saw total employment rise 2% from April, while full-time positions saw a 3.2% jump while part-time jobs saw a 3% dip during the same period.
Of the employment increases, the services-producing sector accounted for the majority with 41,000 new jobs. The top sub-sectors gaining employment positions, the report said, are accommodation/food services (12,000 new positions), educational services (12,000), and wholesale/retail trade (12,000).
The B.C. statistics largely mirror that of the national picture, where Canada’s unemployment rate also rose from 13% to 13.7% (a record high since data started being kept in 1976) on the increasing number of people now looking for work. Nationwide, Canada gained 290,000 jobs last month after losing more than 3 million positions in April; that means that the country has so far regained about 10.6% of the job losses reported since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown and related economic hardships from February to April.
Statistics Canada did note that the number of Canadians who are unemployed but remain on the sidelines and did not look for work in May remains high at 1.4 million, down only slightly from the April figure of 1.5 million. If this group were to be included into the overall employment figures, the national unemployment rate would be 19.6% - a figure that remains unchanged from April.
Of the other province, Quebec led the way in job gains from April to May, seeing a 6.5% increase in employment positions last month. New Brunswick (5.4%) and Newfoundland/Labrador (5.3%) are the only other provinces to report a job gain of more than 5% during the month of May. Ontario, which saw employment positions dip by 1%, is the only province to lose net jobs last month.
