The March Labour Market Notes was released today for February’s job numbers. Here are some highlights:
- Part-time jobs are up by 8,100
- Full-time jobs are up by 3,300
- Self-employment jobs are down by 3,000
- Public sector jobs are down by 4,700
- Private sector jobs are up by 19,200
This seems like good news, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
The number of filled full-time jobs was at its lowest level in 2 years in January, and this is the first increase since October. Between July 2019 and January 2020, Alberta lost 55,900 full-time jobs. We lost 3,600 jobs in January alone. This increase brings that number to 52,600. We have still lost over 50,000 full-time jobs since last July. That’s over 6,500 lost per month on average. These new jobs don’t even make up for January’s losses.
I guess we’ll see if this increase is part of a trend.
