By The Numbers: N.B. unemployment and lobster processing industry

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick is struggling with jobless rates that hover consistently near the double-digit mark – but last year the provincial fisheries minister says some lobster plants were so short-staffed, they had to throw out thousands of pounds of lobster.

Here are some key figures:

_ One plant had to dispose of more than 1,300 kilograms – about 3,000 pounds – of lobster because of staffing shortages.

– The price of lobster in New Brunswick from May to July of 2015, according to the website for Fish, Food and Allied Workers, was $4.75 per pound.

_ New Brunswick’s unemployment rate in of January 2016 was 9.3 per cent.

_ Seafood export sales from the province increased in 2015 to more than $1.3 billion and more than $700 million were lobster export sales – approximately 53 per cent.

_ The New Brunswick seafood industry directly employs about 6400 workers, most of them working in the lobster business.

_ New Brunswick has 44 active lobster processing facilities.