Niagara unemployment rate nudges up to 5.8% in August
Published September 12, 2022 at 10:04 am
Niagara Region’s unemployment rate rose from July to August but the current level is certainly nothing to cause panic.
The yardstick for a good level of unemployment is five per cent or anything near that number. Niagara rose to 5.8 per cent in August from a low of 4.5 per cent in July.
However, to compare apples with apples, last August in 2021, the Niagara unemployment rate was 10.6 per cent, a level which would be considered an unhealthy sign for the local economy.
Accordingly, the “participation rate,” which measures people aged 15 to 64 either working or actively seeking work, also dipped a little from 60.1 percent in August against 61.1 per cent in July.
In terms of actual people, perhaps the best metric for measurement, the number of employed in Niagara fell from 218,500 in July to 213,000 in August.
Nationally, there were similar numbers, as employment declined by 40,000 (-0.2 per cent) in August and the unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points to 5.4 per cent.
Videos
