Oil slump looms as Canada’s job growth sputters and unemployment rate rises

The Alberta Advantage in job creation is officially over – the latest statistics released Friday show that the provincial unemployment rate is higher than the national rate for the first time since December 1988.

The jobs data also showed that self-employed positions fell by 20,200 last month, while the net number of employee jobs increased by 14,500.

The decrease pushed Alberta’s unemployment rate to 7.4 per cent – its highest level since February 1996.

January’s job numbers show Alberta is struggling under the weight of the energy downturn.

In Saskatchewan, the unemployment rate moved up to 5.6 per cent from 5.5 per cent, as the economy shed 6,000 full-time jobs.

Despite “little employment change in natural resources for the month”, the report says industry declines totaled 13,000 jobs in the past year, also driven by losses in Alberta.

Canada-wide, more people were working in the information, culture and recreation sectors, but employment declined in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, and public administration.

The survey says the oil-producing provinces of Alberta and Newfoundland were among the hardest hit as their job losses climbed amid the severe oil-price slump.

Statistics Canada said on Friday that in the year to January, employment increased by an anemic 125,500 jobs, or 0.7 per cent.

Only Ontario saw jobs increase.

“The regional divergence is the dominant theme here, as Alberta is now weakening notably after at first holding up surprisingly well in the early stages of the oil price shock”, said Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets. It came on the same day that the U.S. Labor Department said the U.S. economy added fewer jobs than expected in January, signaling employers are cautious amid global market unrest.