Yukon jobless rate hits three-year high
Ranks of territory's unemployed swell by 2.4 percentage points over last year
Yukon's latest employment numbers show there are hundreds more people looking for work, but fewer jobs to go around.
New figures from the Yukon Bureau of Statistics show the territory's unemployment rate hit 6.7 percent in May, the highest it's been since 2012.
Territory shed jobs
Gary Brown, a senior analyst with the Yukon Bureau of Statistics, said the size of the labour force increased by 300 people over last year, while there are 200 fewer jobs available.
"So 300 more ready to work out there, but when the number of employed is staying the same or going down, obviously you would like to see that increase as well," he said.
May is the second straight month Yukon's unemployment rate went up. In April, it hit 6.3 per cent.
Yukon's unemployment rate has been steadily climbing, Brown said. "[It's] been trending upward over the winter here," he said. "Through the fall and last summer we were looking at under 4 percent unemployment rate and it's slowly been inching upward."
According to national job figures announced Friday, the Canadian economy added 59,000 jobs in May, while the jobless rate stood unchanged at 6.8 percent.