Kelowna jobless rate falls while rest of the region sees increase

Kelowna is bucking a regional, provincial and national trend with a drop in the unemployment rate.

The Kelowna Census Metropolitan Area (essentially the Central Okanagan) saw its unemployment rate drop to 4.5 per cent in December, 2020 from 4.7 per cent in November, according to Statistics Canada data.

That leaves Kelowna, for the second month in a row, as the area with the second-lowest unemployment rate in the country, behind Quebec City’s 4.3 per cent.

The Thompson/Okanagan region as a whole saw its unemployment rate climb in December to 7.7 per cent from 7.4 per cent the month before.

This follows the national and provincial pattern where unemployment has increased for the first time since the depths of the recession triggered by COVID-19. The unemployment rate in the Thompson/Okanagan region hit 10.3 per cent in both June and July.

Canada’s and B.C.’s unemployment rates both climbed by 0.1 per cent in December, with B.C. rising to 7.2 per cent and the national rate going to 8.6 per cent.

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