RED DEER- The Red Deer area unemployment rate rose to 13.4% in June.
That is up from May’s 12.7%.
The local unemployment rate in June of last year was 7.1%.
Alberta’s unemployment rate remained unchanged last month at 15.5%.
(Source: Alberta Labour/Statistics Canada)Nationally, the economy added 953,000 jobs last month, far more than the 700,000 that economists had expected.
That pushed the jobless rate down from May’s record high of 13.7% to 12.3%.
Stats Canada reports there are still about 3.1 million people affected by the shutdown of businesses due to COVID-19 and says the unemployment rate would have been 16.3% had it included, in unemployment counts, those who wanted to work, but did not look for a job.
About 2.5 million didn’t have jobs in June, either due to temporary or permanent layoffs, while the rest are working less than half their usual hours.
As businesses that were forced to shut down due to COVID-19 started re-opening, the economy added 488,000 full-time and 465,000 part-time positions.
(With file from The Canadian Press)
