Red Deer region’s unemployment rate down to 5.3% in October

Nov 6, 2026 | 3:11 PM

In good news, the Red Deer economic region’s unemployment rate* fell from 6.0 per cent in September to 5.3 per cent in October — the lowest among the province’s economic regions.

Our region includes the city of Red Deer, Red Deer County, Lacombe, Montana 139, Samson 137, and Sylvan Lake, among other communities.

That rate is the third lowest this year for the economic region, behind 5.2 per cent in March and 4.3 per cent in February. It’s also lower than the 7.4 per cent we saw in October 2025.

Elsewhere, there was a net gain of 2,600 people who had work in October, compared to September — 125,900 to 128,500.

That’s also up from a 2026 low of 120,200 in June.

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In October, the top job postings in the economic region were for retail salespersons (74), registered nurses and psychiatric nurses (60), cooks, retail managers, and store clerks/shelf stockers (41 each), nurse aides and orderlies (37), delivery service drivers and licensed practical nurses (29 each), restaurant managers (27), and food service supervisors (24).

There were 1,007 job postings in Red Deer, 116 in Lacombe, 109 in Ponoka, 80 in Sylvan Lake, and 68 each in Blackfalds and Innisfail.

Unemployment rates across the province – October 2026 (September 2026)

Camrose-Drumheller: 8.8% (8.3)
Alberta: 7.3% (6.4)
Edmonton: 7.3% (7.7)
Calgary: 6.6% (6.3)
Lethbridge-Medicine Hat: 6.3% (6.9)
Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake: 5.6% (6.4)
Banff-Jasper-Rocky Mountain House and Athabasca-Grande Prairie-Peace River: 5.6% (6.3)
Red Deer: 5.3% (6.0)

*Unemployment data represents three-month moving average, unadjusted for seasonality, as reported by Statistics Canada on Nov. 6.

by Josh Hall

Red Deer region’s unemployment rate down to 5.3% in October

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