The Red Deer region’s unemployment rate last month was the highest in the province, says the monthly Labour Force Statistics.
The region’s unemployment rate was 8.6 per cent, up from 7.4 per cent in January, and nearly double the 4.7 per cent from February 2019, according to Statistics Canada.
Alberta’s unemployment rate was 7.2 per cent, down slightly from 7.3 per cent in January and in February 2019. The province had 2,500,100 people employed, down 10,100 jobs from a month earlier.
Canada’s unemployment rate last month was 5.6 per cent, up slightly from 5.5 per cent in January, but down from 5.8 per cent a year ago.
Among the province’s seven economic regions, Lethbridge-Medicine Hat had the best unemployment rate at 4.6 per cent. The others were: Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake (5.8); Camrose-Drumheller (6.4); Banff-Jasper-Rocky Mountain House and Athabasca-Grande Prairie-Peace River (6.8); Calgary (7.2) and Edmonton (7.7).
Nation-wide, Quebec had the lowest unemployment rate at 4.5 per cent, followed by: Manitoba (5.0), B.C. (5.0), Ontario (5.5), Saskatchewan (6.2), New Brunswick (6.9), Alberta (7.2), Nova Scotia (7.8), Prince Edward Island (8.0) and Newfoundland (12.0).