Employment rate for Okanagan reaches pre-pandemic levels

Sep 13, 2021 | 6:00 AM

The employment rate for the economic region has reached a level that hasn’t been seen in nearly two years.

The unadjusted figures from Statistics Canada that represents the percentage of residents that were employed in August 2021, was 56.9 per cent for the Thompson-Okanagan region.

That’s the highest the rate has been since December of 2019, when it was at 59.8 per cent.

It’s also the third month in a row that employment in the region has gone up.

Meanwhile, both the labour force and population figures also rose in August. The labour force (people over 15 who are eligible to work), was 319,300 (up 10,200 from the previous month), and the population was at 506,900 (up from 505,800 in July). The figures from Stats Can are rounded to the nearest 100.

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With those changes, the unemployment rate for the Thompson-Okanagan also rose from 5.1 per cent in July to 5.4 per cent in August.

The regional changes come as the provincial employment rate rose to 61.9 per cent, which is the highest it’s been since December of 2019 as well, when the rate was 62.2 per cent.

British Columbia’s unemployment was up to 6.7 per cent in August after increasing by a tenth of a percentage point from July 2021.

by Liam Verster

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