The local labour market continued to tighten last month, with Statistics Canada calculating unemployment in the Red Deer region at 4.9 per cent.
That compared with a figure of 5.4 per cent in September and 5.8 per cent in August.
However, the jobless rate in the Red Deer area remains among the highest in Alberta, with the province’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 4.4 per cent last month — up 0.1 percentage points from September.
A year ago, Red Deer’s unemployment rate was 4.6 per cent and the provincial average was 4.4 per cent.
Among Alberta’s eight regions, the Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area had the lowest jobless figure for October, at 2.7 per cent.
Next was Banff-Jasper-Rocky Mountain House at 3.8 per cent, followed by Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake (3.9 per cent), Athabasca-Grande Prairie (4.1 per cent), Camrose-Drumheller (4.2 per cent), Calgary (4.7 per cent), Red Deer, and Edmonton (4.9 per cent).
Alberta’s unemployment rate in October was the second lowest in Canada, behind Saskatchewan’s 3.6 per cent.
The national rate was 6.9 per cent, unchanged from September.
Alberta’s labour force increased by 3,500 people from September to October, while employment increased by 700.