Local jobless rate continues downward trend
Posted Dec 6, 2013 11:20:33 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The local jobless rate has continued a downward trend that began in the summer – falling to an even 6 per cent last month, down from 6.8 in October and 7.3 in September.
Vincent Ferrao of StatsCan tells 570 News there are 4,000 more employed people in Waterloo Region. “This November there were 295,000 people working and in October there were 291,000 people working.”
Ferrao says employment is up across a variety of sectors, led by the service sector. “For example, retail and wholesale. There’s also more employment in professional, scientific and technical services; more people working in health care and social assistance.”
He says “it looks like Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo seems to be more diversified and the employment gains are not in just one sector but in several sectors.”
One particular area that showed strong job growth is the manufacturing sector. Ferrao says there were 57,000 people working in manufacturing locally, 5,000 more than a year ago.
