Saskatchewan often marches to a different beat than many parts of the country in matters related to the economy. We have a commodity-based marketplace while some areas – particularly in the big population regions – rely more heavily on service-based businesses. So, it is not surprising that we produce different results once in a while.
A case in point is the jobs report that came out Friday. Canada lost 33,000 jobs in March. Saskatchewan gained more than 6,000 for the month which amounts to 19,000 more than a year earlier, according to the StatsCan report. Clearly, we were going in different directions.
For Saskatchewan, this means we have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, down half a point to 4.9 percent. We are also seeing broad expansion on the labor front.
The number of people of working age rose by 1,300 in the month as our population continues to grow. And, even with more people, the number of individuals without a job dropped by 3,000. So, we’re adding more people but employers are generating even more jobs.
