The latest job numbers from Statistics Canada were released Friday morning, and southeast Saskatchewan again saw a drop in the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate for the Regina-Moose Mountain Economic Region, which includes Estevan, was 4.8 per cent in May, down from 5.1 per cent in April. This was the third consecutive month the unemployment rate declined in the region.
The majority of the gains in the economic region were in Regina itself. The provincial capital saw 2200 more jobs, with 700 in the rest of the region.
While there was a decrease in the unemployment rate in the region, it isn’t the lowest in the province. That honour falls to Yorkton-Melville, which had an unemployment rate of 2.2 per cent in May. This was the lowest of all economic regions in the country and helped the province to have an unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent overall, the lowest of all the provinces.
Nationally, the unemployment rate did increase slightly, moving up by 0.1 to 7 per cent, with an increase of just 8,800 in people working.
When it comes to wages in the province, the median wage stayed steady in May and is down from one year ago. The median, which is the number where half of the population is making less than that amount, was $1,080 a week, according to Statistics Canada data. This is down by 3.5 per cent from the start of the year.