Saskatchewan's employment minister is touting continued strong employment numbers for the month of July.
Rob Norris, minister of advanced Education, Employment and Immigration, was pleased by numbers showing Saskatchewan setting a record for numbers of people employed in July at 532,100, an increase of 5,800 over the same month in 2009, with the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent representing the lowest in Canada.
"What we see reflects and reinforces that Saskatchewan is continuing to move forward," Norris said in an interview with the Regional Optimist. "We haven't been immune to what's gone on around us, but on a relative scale we continue to help lead the country into an era of more prosperity."
Norris credited improvement in the natural resources sector, particularly potash, as well as a pickup in trade numbers and in manufacturing. "Those three sectors are helping to assure that we maintain our momentum," said Norris.
He also said government policies of fiscal prudence, strategic investments in infrastructure and other areas, as well as paying down the debt are also helping contribute to the growth. Norris was also happy to see that 90 per cent of the increase in July was made up of full-time jobs.
Still, it wasn't an entirely rosy picture as Norris acknowledged the impact of the recent number of storms that have battered the province, including the Battlefords.
"We know that certainly there have been some challenges to agriculture, there have been challenges to the construction sector," said Norris.
Some concern has also been raised in the city of Saskatoon over a loss of 1,400 jobs between June and July.
Norris acknowledged the storms may have played a role in those numbers in slowing down projects, but he also noted that there was actually more job creation compared to a year ago, describing the conflicting numbers "a tale of effectively two cities."
The minister expressed confidence that jobs will continue to be created as the harvest season approaches and as the weather improves in the rest of 2010.
While the government expressed optimism about the employment report numbers, the opposition NDP gave a dimmer assessment of the job picture. Employment critic Cam Broten said in a press release that Saskatchewan has the third worst job creation in Canada in July.
"30,600 people are looking for jobs here in Saskatchewan but they have been unsuccessful. That's a lot of families who are struggling to pay the bills and put some food on the table," Broten said in a statement.
