| Regina has the lowest unemployment rate among Canadian cities at 3.8 per cent. |
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| Monday, 23 January 2012 15:02 |
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REGINA — The number of people receiving regular Employment Insurance benefits in Saskatchewan in November decreased 2,530, or 24.3 per cent, to 7,900 from 10,430 in November 2010, the third-largest decrease among the provinces, said Statistics Canada in a report released Thursday. Only Alberta, which saw a 38-per-cent decrease, and Ontario, which had a 24.4-per-cent decrease, had larger decreases, while B.C. was tied with Saskatchewan for third with a 24.3-per-cent decrease. Saskatchewan also saw a 2.2-per-cent decrease in the total number of EI claims from a year ago, the federal agency said. As a percentage of the total labour force population, Saskatchewan has the second-fewest number of people receiving EI benefits in Canada at 1.2 per cent; Alberta is the lowest at one per cent, the province said in a press release. It marks the 20th consecutive month the number of Saskatchewan people receiving regular EI benefits has dropped year-over-year, according to the government release. In Saskatchewan, all eight large centres recorded monthly year-over-year declines in the number of EI recipients, the largest occurring in Regina and Saskatoon, StatsCan said. In Regina, the number of beneficiaries fell by 430 or 35.2 per cent to 800, continuing the downward trend that began in summer 2010. In Saskatoon, 1,300 people received benefits, down 490 or 26.9 per cent, the 12th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Regina currently has the lowest unemployment rate among Canadian cities at 3.8 per cent, while Saskatoon is fifth-lowest at 5.4 per cent. "The latest drop in the number of EI recipients from Saskatchewan reflects the continued strength of our province's labour market," Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration Minister Rob Norris said in a press release. But Doug Elliott of Sask Trends Monitor isn't so sure the falling number of EI recipients is necessarily indicative of a healthy job market. "Using this as a measure of the strength of the labour market is a mistake because this (number of EI beneficiaries) is going down a lot faster than the number of unemployed." Elliott noted the percentage of unemployed who are receiving EI benefits has fallen to 27 per cent in November from 34 per cent in November 2010. "I think they're running out of benefits or they're becoming unemployed in a way that makes them ineligible to receive EI. So the number of unemployed is not dropping as fast as the number of EI beneficiaries."
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