Job growth rate in Thompson-Okanagan below provincial average

B.C. added 70,000 new jobs from September 2021 to September 2022, an increase of 2.6% but the number of jobs in the Thompson-Okanagan region only rose by 1.5% during that same time frame.

Those numbers are included in the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C.’s annual report on work that was released today, Nov. 2.

That brings the provincial job total to 2.75 million. That’s 3.7% higher than the pre-pandemic September 2019 but is slower than population growth, which was 4.2% since 2019.

There were 153,925 unfilled jobs posted in September and only 122,500 people looking for work.

“In a survey in August of Chartered Professional Accountants in B.C., 87% of respondents identified labour shortages as a major challenge to business success in 2022, the top ranked challenge,” association President and CEO Lori Mathison said in a news release. “This shortage places a drag on businesses’ ability to maximize their production of goods and services for residents and reduces our economic growth. Going forward, we need to expand our workforce and provide greater skills training, particularly for industries facing the greatest scarcity of labour.”

The Thompson-Okanagan workforce increased by 4,500 jobs over the past year to 309,900 jobs with 239,900 full time (down 0.9%) and 70,100 part-time (up 10.9%).

Service Sector employment increased by 2.4% over the past year to 242,800. That was led by growth in customer-facing industries such as the wholesale/retail trade category that was up 31.9% to 52,100 jobs and hospitality, which increased by 18.1% to 22,200 jobs. Both those sectors were still below 2019 levels.

Health care jobs fell by 15.1% to 44,300 jobs

Over the past year, jobs in the Thompson-Okanagan goods sector fell 1.9% to 67,100, mainly due to a 9.9% drop in construction jobs to 30,900. Natural resource jobs fell 22.9% to 6,400 while manufacturing was up 9.1% to 20,300 jobs.

The unemployment rate for the region was 4.9% in September compared to 4.5% in September 2019.

The Vancouver Island/Coast region had the highest job growth rate in B.C. at 5% while the Kootenay region was the only part of B.C. to experience job losses in the past year, dropping by 0.5%.

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