Labour Market Update - Northern Nova Scotia

•Employment is down from December’s level in Northern Nova Scotia and the declines are all in full-time jobs.  The number of part-time jobs increased.

 

•Unemployment rose because of the job loss but the extent of the increase was lessened by a labour force decline.  The unemployment rate increased in response to the higher unemployment and lower labour force numbers.

 

•Employment is also down from last January and the decline in that 12 month period is primarily among full-time positions although part-time job losses also occurred.

 

•The number of unemployed is much higher than it was in January 2009 not just because of the lower employment this year but also because the labour force has increased and added to the number of job seekers. This is reflected in a higher unemployment rate this January, the highest for any January since 1998.

 

•The job losses from December to January were almost equally distributed among the Goods sector, where Manufacturing experienced most of the decline, and the Service sector which saw small losses within several industry groups.

 

•The employment decline from January 2009 was concentrated in the Service sector.  Trade suffered a substantial loss of jobs and other declines in Accommodation & Food and Education, while smaller, were still significant.

*This report is an analysis of three month moving average data from Statistics Canada’s monthly Labour Force Survey.  The reader should be cautioned that because of relatively small sample sizes in subprovincial regions, data reliability may be an issue.