It’s been a long time since Saskatchewan posted a negative number in the monthly jobs report but that’s what happened in August.
The StatsCan release Friday said Saskatchewan’s labor market shifted somewhat in the last month of summer. Not only did the province lose 2,400 jobs, the overall labor pool dropped by 4,400.
A falling labor pool can be attributed to people retiring, people leaving the province or people simply heading to the sidelines rather than searching for employment.
This was a tough year for summer jobs across the country and the number of young people leaving the workforce in Saskatchewan correlated almost exactly to overall provincial job losses.
Ironically, though, the shrinking labor pool also contributed to a reduction in unemployment even though there were fewer people on our payrolls. The unemployment rate is a ratio of people working to those available to work and that fell to 4.6-percent last month.
All the losses were on the goods producing side of the economy with manufacturing taking the biggest hit. The service side actually generated additional jobs in August.
