Tourism, overall economy credited for solid job numbers in BC

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The unemployment rate is going up across the country, but not here in B.C., and some experts say it’s because of our tourism industry and overall economy.

The latest monthly job numbers from Statistics Canada reveal the national unemployment rate has risen to 7.2%, up from 7.1% in December.

Christian Saint Cyr publishes the BC Labour Market Report and says there has been growth in a lot of industries in British Columbia.

“I think we’re benefiting a lot from the growth that we’ve seen from the tourism sector. But I also think we have a fairly diversified economy so we’ve done really well with technology and healthcare, not just government funded healthcare, but private healthcare in terms of facilities and things like that.”

Saint Cyr adds a lot of baby boomers are not retiring when they traditionally have in the past, so we should see an even bigger boom in 2018/2019.

“We’re also benefiting by demographics. We have a lot of people who are moving to British Columbia in retirement or pre-retirement mode. We have a lot of Canadians who are seeing this as an opportunity to spend the rest of the years here. We’re not getting as many Albertan job seekers as you might think. In the second quarter of 2015, we actually saw 1,200 people move to Alberta, in spite of the fact that the province lost 65,000 jobs.”

When it comes to the thousands of jobs promised in the LNG industry, Saint Cyr says the government hasn’t seen the development it was hoping for.

“We have an oil and gas sector that’s significant, but it’s not as large as what they have in Alberta. If the prices return to the normal levels, that’s going to be a strong industry for us. We have a lot of construction going on. Right now in British Columbia, we’re looking at about $90 billion of slated construction and not necessarily having the workers.”

According to Stats Canada, the province’s unemployment rate dipped from 6.7% to 6.6% last month by adding 1,200 jobs. Alberta posted its worst unemployment rate in a decade.

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