Sask Job Picture Largely Unchanged in February

The employment picture in February in Saskatchewan didn’t change very much. We saw 500 new jobs generated – not too much difference from January – while the more pronounced movement was in the size of the workforce.

In that one, we saw 2,500 new entrants into the market. This is people looking for a job as we had more people move into the province – about 500 – plus a group that had been on the sidelines deciding they could start looking for a job again. Often that is seen as a positive sign, a signal that those who had given up were optimistic enough to begin sending out resumes.

The new jobs were primarily in the part-time category as full-time position numbers fell in February – one of the few times we’ve seen that in recent months. But we still had nearly 5,000 more jobs at end of last month than we had at the same time a year earlier …so we see employers continuing to expand their payrolls, even in the face of difficult challenges such as trade barriers and blockades which are triggering lower prices.