N.W.T. has lowest unemployment in country as hundreds more employed in public sector

The N.W.T. has the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, thanks largely to hundreds of people making the move to public administration, a new release from the N.W.T. Bureau of Statistics shows.

The latest update on labour force activity from the bureau shows roughly 700 more people working in public administration this month than in January 2020.

The effect, according to seasonally unadjusted numbers, is an overall employment rate of 65.8 per cent, surpassing pre-COVID-19 levels. It's the second highest in the country, behind only Yukon. Unemployment, meanwhile, is just under six per cent — lower than at any time since the fall of 2018.

The impact of the pandemic is clear in the sectors that have seen significant growth since January of last year, and those that have seen sharp declines.

Alongside the growth in government jobs, hundreds more are working in health care, social assistance, transportation and warehousing.

Construction is also seeing a boom, with 400 more workers this January than in 2020.

But the largest declines were in the natural resources and tourism sectors, once seen as key to the territory's economy.

The categories of "information, culture and recreation" and "forestry, fishing, mining, [and] oil and gas" saw the loss of roughly 800 jobs, according to the release.

The boom in public sector jobs is part of a trend during the pandemic. Before March 2020, it was rare to see months where fewer people worked in the private sector than for government. But since then, there have been only three months where private sector employment surpassed public levels.

As of this month, there are now 1,200 more people working in the public sector than for private employers — the biggest lead for public employment in the 10 years of data included in the bureau's release.

Overall employment up on pre-pandemic levels

This week saw the territory table its 2021-22 budget, which included continued funding for nearly 300 positions in the territorial government added since last year.

Most of those jobs — 155 in total — are in a temporary department created to coordinate the territory's COVID-19 response, and many of the new jobs are concentrated in Yellowknife.

It's not clear what will happen to those jobs when the COVID-19 secretariat is no longer needed. But at 6,201 employees strong, the territorial government now employs more than a quarter of the territory's entire labour force.

The effect of the surge in public employment is clear — those added jobs more than cover for losses in other sectors. Territory-wide, overall employment is actually up on pre-pandemic levels, by 1.6 per cent, a profound rally on record lows in the summer of 2020.

Youth employment is up, too — January saw the largest year-on-year increase in employment among those aged 15 to 24 since 2017, with nearly half of that age group now employed.

Men fare worse in public hiring boom

But the benefits of that recovery have been uneven.

Statistics show 800 more women working this January than the same time last year, and more women in the labour force than at almost any other time in the territory's recent history.

But men fared less well, with 200 fewer employed now than in January 2020. The number of men in the labour force has plummeted, from a pre-pandemic peak of 13,600 in August 2019 to just 11,800 today.

The result is more than a two per cent difference in unemployment rates between men and women in the territory, with nearly seven per cent of men unemployed.

Canada's three northern territories have fared far better than southern provinces during the pandemic.

Together with the N.W.T., Nunavut and Yukon have the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Adjusted for seasonal variations, Yukon's rate is actually even lower, at just 5.6 per cent.

Because labour force participation is low in Nunavut, that territory also has among the lowest employment rates in the country, with just under half of its residents employed.

Nationally, Canada's employment rate is still more than three per cent lower than it was this time last year.