Unemployment in Stratford and area dipped slightly last month and bucked provincial numbers, according to data released Friday.
The Four County Labor Market Planning Board officials said 1,700 full-time jobs were added in the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region in July, though it was accompanied by 2,400 part-time employment losses.
The region’s labor force continued to drop from 164,600 people in June to 163,600 in July. The size of population not participating in the labor force also increased by 1,400, bringing the participation rate down to 60.1 per cent.
Overall unemployment was 4.3 per cent to start August, a drop of 0.2 per cent.
With an increase of 1,500 employees, information, culture and recreation experienced the greatest gain last month (40.5 per cent), followed by “other” services (except public administration) (+1,000, 16.4 per cent) and finance, insurance, real estate , rental and leasing (+600, 10.7 per cent).
Conversely, educational services experienced the biggest loss last month (-1,100, -12.6 per cent), followed by health care and social assistance (-1,300, -7.3 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (-100, – 3.85 per cent).
The number of goods-producing sector employees decreased in July by 1,400, a drop of 2.2 per cent. With a loss of 1,300 employees, agriculture was hit the hardest (-9.4 per cent), followed by construction (-600, -2.7 per cent). Utilities experienced the biggest gain (+300, 5.2 per cent), followed by manufacturing (+100, 0.5 per cent).
Employment in the services-producing sector increased by 700 jobs (0.8 per cent).
Provincially, unemployment increased 0.4 per cent to 5.9 per cent.
Current job postings for the Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth region have increased since the pandemic and can be found at connect2JOBS.ca.