New Brunswick loses 3,000 jobs but unemployment rate falls

After solid gains in June and July, New Brunswick's economy disappointed again in August with the loss of 3,000 jobs according to the latest count by Statistics Canada.

The result was poor, but made even worse by a deterioration in the split between full and part-time work.The province actually shed 5,500 full-time jobs during the month a number offset by the creation of 2,600 part-time positions.

The full-time job losses in New Brunswick in August were so large they more than erased three straight months of gains in that category that looked to be turning the province's economy around.

In an odd statistical quirk, New Brunswick's unemployment rate improved slightly to 9.4 per centin August despite the job losses as 4,600 people left the labour force.

The poor results come despite recent positive signs in the New Brunswick economy. Statistics Canada has been recording record automotive sales and restaurant revenues in the province through the spring as well as the strongest lumber production and shipment numbers in the last nine years.

In July the province posted job gains of 5,000, including 3,800 full-time jobs, the single largest gain in the province in more than four years.August numbers have now reversed most of that.

Job losses in New Brunswick were second highest in the country behind British Columbia. Overall, jobs increased in Canada in August by 26,000.

Much of New Brunswick's job trouble has been in centres in northern parts of the province. Statistics Canada reported the unemployment rate recorded in the Campbellton and Miramichi area over a three-month average between Juneand August was the highest in the country among Canada's 66 economic regions at 14.6 per cent.

Statistics Canada's job estimates are done monthly but are representative surveys, not hard counts, and are subject to a margin of error.

Monthly job counts in New Brunswick are considered to be accurate within 2,300 jobs,plus or minus,68 per cent of the time and Statistics Canada acknowledges monthly up and down movements can be misleading in the short term.

"One can have more confidence in a series of consecutive (monthly) movements in the same direction," the agency cautions.