In February, the unemployment rate for the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region, which includes the Municipality of Meaford, jumped 0.2 percentage points to 6%, after sitting at one of the lowest in the province for months. Meanwhile, the provincial unemployment rate remained unchanged this month at 7.2%, both unadjusted for seasonality.
In February, the Region’s overall population increased by +300 although the labour force size decreased by -600 people, pushing the number of people not in the labour force in the Region up to 113,500 people. This decreased the Region’s participation rate slightly by 0.2 percentage points to 61.1%. The Region experienced a decrease of -800 people in overall employment, with approximately -1,700 full-time losses and +900 part-time gains.
The number of Goods-producing sector employees decreased by 4.7% (-2,900) in February, with the biggest percentage loss once again in the Agriculture sector (-1,800, -18.8%) due to seasonality, followed by Manufacturing (-900, -4.8%) and Construction (-700, -3.2%). On the other hand, employment in Utilities increased by 500 people (+4.6%) this month.
Overall employment in the Services-producing sector saw an increase of 2.0% (+2,100) this month. Public administration with +800 additional employment, experienced the biggest percentage gain this month (+22.9%), followed by Business, building and other support services (+700, +16.7%) and Wholesale and retail trade (+3,000, +13.7%). Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing also experienced employment gains this month (+500, +8.5%). Accommodation and food services saw the biggest percentage loss in employment (-900, -10.6%), followed by Information, culture and recreation (-400, -5.8%) and Professional, scientific and technical services (-700, -5.3%).
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. The current number of job postings reaches 1,370.
