The unemployment rate in Saskatchewan is now in rare territory.
The latest job numbers came out Friday. Statistics Canada says the national unemployment rate fell in September to 5.2 per cent — which is awfully low by global standards.
But in Saskatchewan, it was more than a full point lower than that at 4.1 per cent. That represents a decline of more than three-quarters of a percentage point in the month.
This could be the result of one of two things: first, it is largely because there are fewer people available to work as the Baby Boom generation embraces retirement in earnest or the survey tools used to measure this stuff is distorted for Saskatchewan because of a small sample size.
The retirement thing though is a ‘thing.’ The number of people of working age is falling, according to the federal agency. For every new person arriving in the 15 to 64 age category, nationally, three are celebrating a 65th birthday.
The decline was even more exaggerated here as our labour pool fell by 7,200 last month. That’s equivalent to all the working people in a city the size of Estevan.
