The local unemployment rate in the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region dropped slightly in October.
That's according to numbers from the Four County Labour Market Planning Board. A media release from the board states that unemployment locally decreased by 0.5 percentage points to 3.8 per cent. The region’s unemployment rate remains the second lowest in the province. Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 percentage points to 7.2 per cent, both unadjusted for seasonality.
In October, the size of the population in the region went up by 400, but the overall labour force decreased by 2,500 to land at 173,300. That means the size of the local population not participating in the labour increased by 2,900.
This also brought the participation rate down by one percentage point to land at 61.3 per cent. The region experienced a decrease in overall employment with approximately 1,900 full-time losses and 600 part-time gains.
Current Job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased overtime since the pandemic and can be found at www.connect2JOBS.ca. The current number of job postings is 2,142.