Halifax Employment Growth Continues, 2,400 Jobs Added Last Month
HALIFAX – The city’s employed labour force keeps growing, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Statistics Canada’s latest numbers, the city added 2,400 jobs between February and March.
The number of people employed in Halifax as of March was 242,500 – an increase of 2,400 from the previous month.
March of 2021 represented the one-year anniversary of when the world changed due to the pandemic. One would expect that employment numbers, overall, would see a significant decrease in every city. Halifax, however, added 14,700 people to the labour force over the past year and employed an extra 10,600 people. Those are mind-boggling stats given the circumstances.
In comparison, cities in neighbouring New Brunswick didn’t do nearly as well, jobwise, during the past 12 months. Moncton added 2,300 to its labour force but still lost more than 1,000 jobs. Saint John faced similar job loss during the pandemic, adding 1,000 to the workforce, yet losing 1,500 jobs in the process.
Despite these impressive job numbers, Halifax was not immune to the rising unemployment rates seen across the country over the past months. In March, 21,600 people were unemployed in Halifax – an increase of 500 since February. In total, Halifax saw a 23.4 per cent increase in the total number of unemployed people. Halifax’s unemployment rate currently sits at 8.2 per cent- a 1.2 per cent increase from a year ago.
In comparison, Moncton had an 8.5 per cent unemployment rate in March, a 0.4 per cent jump from February. Over the past 12 months, the city’s unemployment rate grew by 3.4 per cent. In Saint John the numbers are much starker: The port city in New Brunswick had a 10.9 per cent unemployment rate in March, although that was much better compared to the 12.2 it held in February. Since March of 2020, Saint John’s unemployment rate grew by 3.4 per cent- the exact same as Moncton.
With Halifax leading the way, Nova Scotia’s overall job numbers increased slightly overall between February and March of 2021. The province’s labour force grew by 4,500 to 510,700. Overall, 1,600 new jobs were added. Given that Halifax alone saw 2,400 new jobs in the same time span, this suggests other areas of the province saw significant decreases in jobs.
In March of 2021, the province’s unemployment rate jumped from 8.1 to 8.6, although the unemployment rate actually decreased by 0.8 per cent since March of last year.