NWT leads in employment rate
Labour data shows apparent shift to part-time work from full-time jobs
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Employment data released last week by Statistics Canada shows the NWT is outpacing the rest of Canada although many of the new jobs are part-time.
Deneen Everett, executive director of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, says while January employment figures were good, she expects unemployment to rise as Snap Lake mine layoffs are factored into the numbers. - Shane Magee/NNSL photo |
Labour force data is collected and released by the national statistics agency monthly and NWT information is laid out in a report by the NWT Bureau of Statistics.
The bureau's Friday report shows from January 2015 to January of this year the number of people employed part-time has grown to 3,300 from 2,200. The number of full-time jobs has declined slightly to 18,800 from 19,300 over the same period.
Overall, the number of people employed grew by 500 over the past year. The report notes the territory has the highest employment rate in the country at 68.8 per cent, followed by Yukon and Alberta. The national employment rate is 60 per cent.
That employment growth doesn't surprise Deneen Everett, executive director of the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber gets e-mails regularly from the businesses it represents that are looking for employees in positions such as administrative assistant or those in trades, she said.
"I think people are still hiring," Everett said.
Despite the increased employment rate, the unemployment rate has also grown over the past year, to 9.4 per cent from 7.7 per cent in January 2015.
The report does not give an explanation for why both rates have increased.
Everett emphasized the importance of promoting the NWT as a place to work so more people are attracted to the territory.
The territorial government received much of its revenue from the federal government as a per capita grant, about $28,000 per person.
"I think that we need to market the North as a place to come as a place to work," she said.
The report notes that employment in Yellowknife in January stood at 79.9 per cent compared to 57.8 per cent in communities outside the city.
The report did not provide any comparison to how those figures have changed in recent months.
The employment data is collected by Statistics Canada through personal and telephone interviews as well as electronic questionnaires.
