Saskatchewan Adds 2,600 Jobs, Keeps July Unemployment at 6.0%

Q: With private businesses adding over 10,000 jobs, what hidden sector is quietly shedding thousands of positions in Saskatchewan's booming economy?

The jobs being lost are in Saskatchewan’s non-private sectors — mainly the public sector and self-employment. The math in the labour figures points to that hidden decline. Saskatchewan added just 2,600 jobs year to date, while private-sector employment alone rose by 10,300. That implies roughly 7,700 positions were lost elsewhere in the labour market. Those losses would have come from the combined total of public-sector jobs and self-employed workers, since overall employment growth was far smaller than the gain recorded by private businesses. The available reporting does not break out Saskatchewan’s July provincial loss precisely between those two categories, but nationally and in recent provincial trends, public-sector employment has been flat or down while private hiring has driven most of the gains. So beneath the headline of a booming labour market, the quieter story is that thousands of jobs appear to have disappeared outside the private economy — about 7,700 in the public sector and/or self-employment combined.

3 articles · Updated · DiscoverWeyburn.com · Aug 10

Saskatchewan’s unemployment rate was 6.0% in July, the third-lowest among provinces and below Canada’s 6.4% national rate.
Year to date, the province added 2,600 jobs, up 0.4% from a year earlier, while private-sector employment rose by 10,300 jobs, or 2.7%.
Construction led sector gains with 4,600 new jobs, followed by accommodation and food services with 4,200 and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing with 2,000.
Youth employment rose by 1,500 jobs year over year, while employment for workers aged 25 to 54 increased by 3,900.
Broader indicators also pointed to momentum, with Saskatchewan ranking second in urban housing-start growth, first in manufacturing-sales growth and second-highest in merchandise export growth year to date.