Saskatchewan employers continue to generate new jobs at a solid clip but they are not creating enough to keep with the flow of newcomers to the province.
That’s the message delivered by November’s employment of job numbers that were tabled Friday. Compared to a year earlier, payrolls had grown by 20,000 – that’s the number of jobs you’d see in a city of 30,000. And while that is a notable gain, the workforce grew by 25,000 in that same period as Saskatchewan rides the biggest immigration and population expansion in more than a century.
And one other key factor emerging from the report is how employers are filling full-time positions. The number of people part-time slots dropped by 5,000 in the past year as many moved into the full-time category which swelled by nearly 25,000 over the last year.
Our unemployment rate went up November, rising more than a half point from 4.4 to 5.1 per cent, still one of the lowest rates in the country. Even though our job creation is falling behind population growth, we are doing better than most of the country.
