Calgary still has highest unemployment rate in Canada

Just days after another significant layoff announcement in Calgary, a new jobs report from Statistics Canada shows we still have the highest unemployment rate in the country.

The jobless number was at 9.3 per cent last month, and may not improve anytime soon.

On Wednesday. ConocoPhillips announced it’s cutting about 300 jobs, mostly in Calgary, but ATB Financial’s Chief Economist Todd Hirsch said these sort of announcements are becoming less common.

“We actually don’t anticipate the mass kind of layoffs that we saw two years ago, even though there may be the one or two odd ones that still crop up that, you know, capture our attention, because now they are more unusual than typical,” he said.

Province wide, the unemployment rate fell to 7.9 per cent, and Hirsch said there were some positive signs.

“There was a slight improvement in the quality of jobs — more of those full time jobs coming back,” he said.

Nationally, the fact fewer young people were out looking for jobs pushed Canada’s unemployment rate to its lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

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