Moncton’s Jobless Rate Drops to 5 Per Cent, Saint John’s Jumps to 6.3
Saint John’s unemployment rate increased from May to June, and Moncton’s dropped, but both cities still had lower rates than the rest of the province, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada.
Moncton had an unemployment rate of 5 per cent, down significantly from 6.1 per cent in May. The June figure was a big drop from last year, when the unemployment rate in June was 7.5 per cent.
Saint John had an unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent in June, up from 5.6 per cent in May. But there were positive year-over-year indicators in the report. The unemployment rate in June of last year was 7.8 per cent, much higher than the figure reported this June.
The city’s labour force in June 2016 was 68,800 and in June of this year it had jumped to 69,600, and its labour force participation rate had increased by nearly a percentage point.
Both cities performed better than the province as a whole, which posted an 8.1 per cent unemployment rate. This was a big drop from May, when the province had an unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent.