British Columbia created 19,700 jobs in April, helping Canada post its best two-month employment gain since 1981, according to numbers Statistics Canada released May 11.
The nation added 58,200 new jobs in April and 82,300 in March for a total of 140,500 jobs. The country has not added that many jobs in a two-month period in 31 years.
B.C.’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.2% from 7% in March thanks to the new jobs in April, 16,700 of which were full-time positions.
About the only negative aspect to the jobs numbers was that the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a point to 7.3% in April.
Statistics Canada said that this was because more people started looking for work last month – a signal of labour market strength, rather than weakness.
Within B.C.:
- Vancouver Island and coastal B.C. gained 4,600 jobs;
- the Lower Mainland and southwest B.C. gained 15,000 jobs; and
- the Cariboo gained 500 jobs.
“Today’s numbers clearly show that our investments are working,” said Pat Bell, Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation.
“Every job counts for families in B.C. and it’s great to see that so many corners of our province are seeing positive results.”
Statistics Canada numbers show that B.C. had a labour force of 2.47 million people in April.
