BC Liberals defend jobs plan, despite unemployment numbers

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – For a party that’s campaigning on job creation, this is a tough one to explain: the BC Liberals are out with the job numbers for March, and they don’t look very good.

Our province lost close to 15,000 jobs in March, and it looks even worse when you look at full-time positions; they fell by more than 22,000, though that was partially offset by gains in part-time employment.

“I think it’s very clear that we have severe financial head-winds that we are still facing,” says Jobs Minister Pat Bell.

He points out times are tough all over the country and in the US, too. “It’s a challenging month, but now, it’s more important to stick to the jobs plan than ever before.”

The unemployment rate now sits at seven per cent, up from 6.3 per cent in April.

Political Science Professor Hamish Telford says it’s going to be tough for the party to put a positive spin on that number. “It’s a huge blow. It’s one of the difficulties governments have because they’re not really in the business of creating jobs directly.”

“When numbers come out like this, it paints the government in a very poor light.”

Over $1.6 million was spent to put on 47 job fairs across the province recently, but today’s unemployment rate spike has some wondering if it was money well spent.

The fair ran through 24 communities…some of them twice, the province says they attracted over 31,000 people.

The NDP finance critic feels the campaign did not give the Liberals the results they wanted.

“Really if you have that kind of a program without a proper investment in skills training, you are bound to come up short,” says Bruce Ralston.

Ralston says advertising the jobs was only a starting point. “Without that kind of concerted long-term strategy you are not going to get a good result.”

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