Lethbridge-Medicine Hat region sheds 7,600 jobs in April

The Lethbridge-Medicine Hat region saw its unemployment rate climb in the month of April.

The latest jobs report from Statistics Canada puts the jobless rate at 6.8 per cent, an increase of 1.6 per cent since March.

“It’s not a huge surprise that the unemployment numbers increased,” said Trevor Lewington, the CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge.

“I think people have been expecting that with business closures and the impact of the pandemic.”

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The Lethbridge-Medicine Hat region does hold the lowest unemployment rate in Alberta among its economic regions. In April, the provincial jobless rate came in at 13.4 per cent.

Economic Development Lethbridge says the 1.6 per cent increase equates to 7,600 jobs lost in April. It said 4,300 of those were part-time positions.

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“When you talk about percentages, it’s easy to forget that those are real people, those are real impacts, and 7,600 jobs did vanish in the last month.

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“Across our region, that’s really what we have to think about — is how do we get those jobs back and make sure we get those people re-employed?” Lewington said.

EDL said some of the harder-hit sectors in the region, like retail, have seen a 17.3 per cent drop in employment since February.

During that same period, it said accommodation and food services saw a workforce reduction of 16.8 per cent.

Lewington said federal aid programs like the wage subsidy are having an impact in some places, but stressed it’s not a fix-all solution to keeping people in the workforce.

“When we look at restaurants, for example, restaurants that have been innovating with delivery and curbside pickup, might have had several dozen staff, (but) they can do those same sales with a few staff, so we’re talking about going from 40 to 50 people to maybe five,” he said.

With eased public health restrictions and some businesses expected to reopen in the coming months, Lewington warned southern Alberta, like the rest of Canada, still faces an uphill climb.

“I think it’s going to take a number of weeks, potentially months, for businesses to retain their full staffing levels, or even get back to where their sales or volumes were before.”