Some of the largest employment gains across the country were seen here in Alberta in December. Stats Can released last month’s employment numbers today and 55,000 Canadians re-entered the workforce last month, though much of that growth was from more part-time work opportunities. Men between the ages of 25 to 55, the “core age”, are currently seeing their lowest rate of unemployment since 1981.
26,000 mostly full-time jobs were created in Alberta last month dropping the unemployment rate to 6.9 per cent. Our region is even lower with just 6 per cent unemployment for the area that includes Banff, Jasper, Rocky Mountain House, Athabasca, Grande Prairie and Peace River. Last December the rate for the same area was 6.2 per cent.
Other areas in the province are continuing to see improvement and growth as well. Calgary’s unemployment rate went from 9.6 per cent in December 2016 to 7.2 per cent in December 2017.
The unemployment rate in Alberta fell from 8.5 per cent at the end of 2016 to 6.9 per cent at the end of 2017. Nationally job growth was seen as well, the unemployment rate fell by 1.2 percentage points to 5.7 per cent.
