New Brunswick’s unemployment rate drops to 10.1 per cent, adds 2,100 jobs

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick’s unemployment rate for March has dropped to 10.1 per cent thanks to an additional 2,100 jobs, Statistics Canada revealed Friday.

A total of 1,100 of the jobs were full-time while 1,000 were part-time jobs. This while the labour force grew by 1,100 New Brunswickers looking for work.

New Brunswick’s unemployment rate rose to 10.4 per cent in February. While the province still has the third highest rate, Premier Brian Gallant said he’s pleased to see these numbers going in the right direction.

“I can let New Brunswickers know here and now that we’re not going to take this lightly and think that our job is done,” he said. “There’s still much to do.”

Since being elected, the Gallant government has added 2,500 jobs to the workforce. But Finance Critic Blaine Higgs says there’s more to the numbers.

“If you look at the Statistics Canada report and you go back to September when we left office, the unemployment rate was 9.6 per cent,” Higgs said. “And then right now? It’s 10.1 per cent. So that’s not exactly a reduction.”

Canada’s unemployment rate remained at 6.8 per cent in March as more people found part-time work.

The federal agency’s latest labour market survey says the country’s jobless rate was unchanged from the previous month, and it registered a month-to-month net gain of nearly 29,000 jobs.

The gain was driven by more people finding part-time work, Statistics Canada said. Over the first quarter of the year, the economy has gained 63,000 jobs, which the agency says are mostly part-time positions.

With files from The Canadian Press