February 10, 2023
Labour Force Survey information released by Statistics Canada today estimates the Northwest Territories’ seasonally unadjusted employment rate at 67.7%, down from 68.6% reported in December 2022. Employment in the territory declined slightly to 23,100, with all declines (300) recorded in full-time work while part-time work was unchanged.
The unemployment rate decreased to 4.9% as a result of fewer people looking for work. Consequently, the number of persons not in the labour market grew by 700 to 9,700 in January.
Year-over-year, the Northwest Territories’ employment rate decreased 3.0 percentage points as the number of employed persons dropped by 1,000 between January 2022 and January 2023. In January 2023, the employment rate among females (69.3%) stayed above that of males (66.7%), similar to historical trends for the month.
Employment by employment type, class of worker, and industry
Among industries, annual employment increases in health care & social assistance (1,100) and in construction (500), were offset by declines in accommodation and food services (1,300), public administration (700), and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing (600). Employment in forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas was little changed over the 12 months.
National highlights
Nationally, Canada’s employment rate was 61.8%, little changed from December 2022. Except for Nunavut, employment rates dropped across all provinces and territories between December and January. Regardless, the Northwest Territories (67.7%) had the second highest employment rate, after Yukon (68.7%), with Alberta (65.2%) and Saskatchewan (63.6%) recording the third and fourth highest rates, respectively.
Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador (10.9%) followed by Nunavut (9.5%), New Brunswick (7.7%) and Prince Edward Island (7.5%) recorded the lowest unemployment rates. In the NWT, the unemployment rate for January was 4.9%.
For additional information on the monthly release of labour force survey results for the Northwest Territories, visit the NWT Bureau of Statistics website at www.statsnwt.ca or call (867) 767-9169.
* LFS estimates in this report are based on seasonally unadjusted, three-months moving-average time series data.