The province saw the number of jobs grow by 9,600 – an increase of 0.4% – in September compared with a month prior, Statistics Canada announced October 10, and most of these were full-time positions.
The number of full-time jobs in British Columbia increased by 20,600, while there were 11,000 fewer part-time jobs, while the unemployment rate remained at 6.1%.
The unemployment rate across Canada dropped 0.2 percentage points to 6.8%, which is the lowest it has been since December 2008. The country gained more than 74,000 jobs in the month – a figure which easily beat analysts’ expectations of a gain of 20,000.
Nick Exarhos, economist at CIBC World Markets, warned against reading too much into these latest numbers.
“As always, the series’ volatility argues against putting too much weight on any one data point in assessing the health of the Canadian labour market,” he said.
The biggest percentage growth in jobs was in Saskatchewan, which saw an increase of 1.2%.
The Canadian dollar rose slightly from 0.894 cents US to 0.896 on the stronger-than-anticipated jobs figures.
