Edmonton job market recovery hits a bump in July

Edmonton’s unemployment rate is at the highest it’s been in decades, and it’s going to take a while to get back down.

Some unexpected job losses last month, along with an increase in the labour force, caused the jobless rate to go up by 0.6 per cent to 8.5.

Economists see this as a speed bump in what will be a slow process to recovery.

“Growth is there, we’ve got a recovery underway, but unfortunately we had a little bit of a stall in June and July here in terms of employment growth,” said City of Edmonton economist John Rose.

“We should be back down to something like 8 per cent or 7.9 per cent unemployment by the end of the year, and then continue to improve as we get into 2018.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We should be back down to something like 8 per cent or 7.9 per cent unemployment by the end of the year, and then continue to improve as we get into 2018."

Despite the hiccup, Rose said there are some signs of recovery. While the numbers show 4,000 positions were lost, all of those were part-time.

“We actually saw gains in full-time employment, particularly in areas like manufacturing and construction, and that’s very good news because those sectors are traditionally well-paying sectors.”

Across the province there were 14,000 jobs lost, however most of those were full-time. Add more people looking for work and the unemployment rate was up 0.4 per cent to 7.8. There was some positive news in that there were 35,000 jobs added since last July, led by gains in the natural resources sector.

Nationally, job growth was slow at 11,000 positions, but fewer people looking for work made the jobless rate drop to 6.3 per cent, the lowest since October 2008.