In July, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region, which includes the Municipality of Meaford, decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 4.3%. The provincial unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage points to 5.9%, both unadjusted for seasonality.
The region’s labour force size continued to drop from 164,600 people in June to 163,600 in July 2023. The size of population not participating in the labour force also increased by 1,400, bringing the participation rate down by 0.5 percentage points to 60.1%. Meanwhile, 1,700 full-time employment gains were reported last month, but the increase was accompanied with 2,400 part-time employment losses, resulting in 700 net losses in the region’s overall employment size in July.
The number of Goods-producing sector employees decreased this month by net 1,400 (-2.2%). With a loss of 1,300 employees, Agriculture experienced the greatest loss this month (-9.4%), followed by Construction (-600, -2.7%). Utilities experienced the biggest gain this month (+300, 5.2%), followed by Manufacturing (+100, 0.5%).
Employment in the Services-producing sector increased by net 700 (+0.8%). With an increase of 1,500 employees, Information, culture and recreation experienced the greatest gain this month (+40.5%), followed by Other services (except public administration) (+1,000, 16.4%) and Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing (+600, 10.7%). On the other hand, Educational services experienced the biggest loss this month (-1,100, -12.6%), followed by
Health care and social assistance (-1,300, -7.3%) and Transportation and Warehousing (-100, – 3.85%).
Current job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased over time since the pandemic and can be found at www.connect2JOBS.ca. This is updated regularly so visit often and create your account to track the job opportunities. Our current number of job postings reached almost 1,900 postings.
