Stratford-area jobless rate rises slightly to 3%

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The Stratford area’s chronically low unemployment rate rose slightly at the end of 2021, hitting three per cent in December, up from 2.8 per cent in November, new figures released by Statistics Canada show.

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That figure, a three-month moving average unadjusted for seasonality, began returning to pre-pandemic levels in the summer and continues to be among the lowest in Ontario.

Stratford’s economic region includes Perth, Huron, Bruce and Gray counties.

The area’s annual unemployment rate for 2021, which is adjusted for seasonality, was 4.2 per cent, down from 7.3 per cent in 2020, Statistics Canada said. Last year’s rate is comparable to 2019’s, when it was 4.4 per cent prior to the pandemic.

Statistics Canada released its monthly labor force survey on Friday.

Although there were gains in part-time work last month, the Stratford area lost 4,100 full-time jobs last month while the region’s labor force, which includes people looking for jobs, shrank by 2,800 workers.

According to further analysis by the Four County Labor Market Planning Board, the loss in full-time work in December marked the largest monthly decline in 2021.

“Expanding our workforce to fill job vacancies and meet employers’ worker needs continues to be a top priority,” said Gemma Mendez Smith, the board’s executive director. “We really need to be thinking about… the strategies we need to put in place to make sure people are available and ready to work.”

The number of workers in the region’s goods-producing sector shrank by 700 last month, driven mainly by job losses in utilities and agriculture.

Despite gaining around 1,100 jobs in accommodation and food services, the region’s services-producing sector lost 2,300 net positions.

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“Even with the positive gains in accommodation and food services, with each lockdown and new virus strain, the services-producing sector continue to be the hardest hit throughout the pandemic,” Mendez Smith said.

Ontario has moved schools online and closed a number of public settings due to another surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the virus’s Omicron variant. A recent reduction in quarantine requirements for vaccinated workers is positive for the economy, Mendez Smith said, but she is concerned the pervasiveness of the new variant could begin affecting businesses that have so far managed to escape the worst impacts of the pandemic.

“More and more people and more and more businesses that may have been unscathed over the first period of this pandemic… are being affected,” she said. “I think we nee to be conscious of that.”

In Ontario, the unemployment rate in December fell to six per cent from 6.4 in November.

Nationally, employment rose by 55,000 jobs in December, while the unemployment rate was little changed at 5.9 per cent.

Both provincial and national rates are adjusted for seasonality.

There were more people in Canada working full time in December, particularly men aged 25 to 54. Most of the employment growth was in Ontario.

Nationally, earnings were driven by the construction and educational services industries, Statistics Canada says.

In addition, average hourly wages increased 2.7 per cent on a year-over-year basis in December.

-With files from Postmedia News

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