July 2021 employment was little changed locally, but the jobless rate still fell.
The Brantford Brant unemployment rate was 6.1% in July, down from 6.5% in June, according to seasonally adjusted estimates released by Statistics Canada.
Employment grew by 94,000 across Canada, dropping the national jobless rate to 7.5%, down 0.3%. Ontario saw some of that employment growth, causing the provincial jobless rate to fall to 8%.
Brantford recorded the lowest unemployment rate among its neighbouring areas; the next lowest is Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo at 7%. St. Catharines-Niagara was the highest at 10.6%.
Most key measurements of the Brantford area labour market, including the number of people participating in the workforce, stayed the same in July as the month before.
But the July 2021 employment numbers may not fully reflect the labour market due to the timing of the Statistics Canada labour force survey.
Statistics Canada surveyed local residents during the week of July 11 to 17. Meanwhile, Ontario dropped many of the final restrictions on businesses starting July 16. That included allowing indoor dining, fuller retail shopping, and the reopening of gyms, galleries, museums and cinemas.
“We expect that the number of local people working jumped after July 16, but we will have to wait a month to see by how much,” said Danette Dalton, executive director of the Workforce Planning Board. “There’s certainly more people out dining, shopping and doing other activities, which points to businesses bringing staff back to meet the demand.”
The Workforce Planning Board has seen an uptick in recent months in the number of postings on its Grand Erie Jobs job board. About 2,900 jobs were posted in July, slightly above June’s record high. Several service-related jobs are among the most in demand, including retail salespersons, customer service representatives, cooks and cashiers.
Dalton said there are signs that some residents are continuing to take a wait-and-see approach to re-entering the job market.
“We are hearing from more businesses that they are struggling to hire, and the Employment Ontario agencies that help people find jobs are seeing fewer clients than usual. Some job seekers are still hesitant to get back into the job market,” she said.
Visit Statistics Canada’s website to read its news release on July 2021’s job market in Canada and Ontario.
