The latest job figures for the nation were released by Statistics Canada Friday morning. While the national unemployment rate was unchanged, and the provincial unemployment rate was down substantially, when adjusted for seasonality, here in the southeast the unemployment number was slightly up.
The local area is the Regina-Moose Mountain economic region, which includes the southeast as well as Regina. The overall unemployment rate in September for the region was 5.5 percent, which was up from 5.4 percent in August. Year over year, it is up from 4.7 percent.
The biggest driver for the change came from the areas of the economic region outside of Regina, with 700 fewer people working compared to August. There was a jump, though, when looking back at September of 2022, with 800 more people working last month than the previous year.
The data from Statistics Canada showed there were 6,000 more people working throughout Saskatchewan in September compared to August. The majority of those new jobs, however, come outside of the Southeast.
With the high number of new jobs, Saskatchewan had the second-lowest unemployment rate in the nation, behind Quebec.
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