Jobless rate dips in March

Despite flat job growth, Sudbury’s unemployment rate dipped to 7.8 per cent in March, down from 8.1 per cent in February.

The reason for the decline was less people looking for work. Greater Sudbury’s labour force shrunk to 89,400 people last month, compared to 89,700 the month before.

“Unemployment figures behaved oddly in Northern Ontario,” wrote Laurentian University economist David Robinson, in his monthly analysis of the labour market.

“Unemployment actually fell in Sudbury as people withdrew from the labour force, but in Thunder Bay, labour force participation jumped even more than employment, resulting in an increase in unemployment.”

Northern Ontario bucked a provincial and national trend, which saw a spike in the number of people looking for work. Statistics Canada said 54,500 fewer people were working last month, nearly all full-time workers and mainly in the private sector.

That more than reversed the 50,700 job gain in February. And overall, employment in Ontario fell by 17,000 jobs in March.

The picture for the North as a whole, Robinson wrote, “continues to look grey.

“Both the northeast and the northwest continue to lose people and jobs year-over-year, surpassing those created the previous month and pushing the unemployment rate (for the region) up to 7.2 per cent.”