July 2023 employment figures showed the Grand Erie region tied for the second lowest jobless rate in Ontario.
The Brantford area unemployment rate rose to 4.2% last month, up from June’s 3.9%, according to seasonally adjusted estimates released by Statistics Canada.
The national rate rose slightly to 5.5%, while Ontario’s unemployment rate shrunk 0.1 point to 5.6%.
Brantford continues to boast the lowest jobless rate compared to surrounding census metropolitan areas, with Guelph following closely behind at 4.4%.
Youth participation and employment both increased, but this was offset by significant decreases amongst core working age and older adults. Both full and part-time employment decreased month over month.
“We’re seeing a growing number of older adults leave the labour force, which creates more job openings, but many of these are hard to fill because there’s a limited labour supply,” said Danette Dalton, the Workforce Planning Board of Grand Erie’s executive director.
“For the past few months, we’ve observed increases in the number of core-working aged adults not in the labour force, and we need to strategize ways to support these individuals by addressing obstacles that deter them from looking for work.
“We recently completed an in-depth study designed to better understand how workers can be supported through improving quality of work across workplaces. We observed major gaps in how employers and employees viewed job quality, but also, significant opportunities for collaborations between sectors, governments, community agencies and workers.”
The WPBGE’s latest report Examining Quality of Work in Grand Erie: an assessment of needs, gaps and opportunities’ is set to be released later this month. The report will be posted to this website.
The Grand Erie Jobs online job board saw about 2350 new postings in July, down slightly from June. The retail trade industry maintained the largest number of postings – namely for retail salespersons, followed by the health care and social assistance, waste management and educational services sectors.
There were also a large number of postings for material handlers, other customer and information service representatives and personal support workers, as well as for university professors and lecturers.
Visit Statistics Canada’s website to read their report on July 2023 employment-related figures for Canada and Ontario.
