WALKERTON (June 5, 2015) – While Canada and the province’s unemployment rates, at 7.2 and 7.0 respectively, remained unchanged from April according to seasonally unadjusted estimates, the unemployment rate fell .5 % from 5.8% to 5.3% in the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula region.

In our region, an estimated 1,000 more people were working in May, improving our employment rate to 62.9% – a figure that has been climbing since the start of 2015.

“These are positive numbers,” said Gemma Mendez-Smith, executive director with the Four County Labour Market Planning Board, adding that “increased economic activity shows we are moving in the right direction.”

This region, according to Statistics Canada’s April 2015 Labour Market Bulletin, has shown “strength among the economic regions with of employment of 8,700 driven entirely by gains in full-time work. “

Increased employment figures reflect and continue to help maintain the region’s unemployment rate with a variety of new job opportunities in the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula region. These opportunities will be in Bruce Power’s planned maintenance and inspections of its Unit 6 nuclear reactor, the opening of a new Wind Energy Centre project in Huron County, Sofina Foods Inc. plans to convert a Mitchell facility into a multi-million dollar turkey processing operation, and Canadian Bioceutical Corporation’s plans to
spend up to $14 million to retrofit the former PPG plant in Owen Sound in order to partner with BioCannabis Products Ltd. to produce alternative forms of medical marijuana.

While there was a dip in the number of people employed locally in Educational Services, there was an increase of 7,500 people working in Information, culture and recreation.

The Four County Labour Market Planning Board is one of 26 non-profit organizations in Ontario that play a leadership role in labour force planning. Following labour market news can help people understand where job opportunities (short, medium and long-term) might be in their local communities.

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