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Unemployment up, says report

BC Stats has released a report stating that while the country’s overall unemployment is decreasing, B.C.’s unemployment rate has risen to 7.5 percent from the 7.4 percent it held in August of last year.

The report, which summarizes more than a year of employment data, is based on statistics from the Labour Force Survey which is produced monthly by Statistics Canada. The report shows B.C. has lost over 21,800 full time jobs from August 2010 to August 2011.

In a growing trend, August saw the unemployment average for B.C. at a higher rate than the Canadian over-all average.

“The story here is that typically B.C. has had lower unemployment rates than all of Canada and that has changed recently,” said Iglika Ivanova, an economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives a research institute concerned with issues of social and economic justice.

In an article released today on the B.C. Federation of Labour website, B.C. Fed president Jim Sinclair was quoted as saying, “It feels like every time Christy Clark says ‘jobs' our province sheds another full time job. It's time for the Premier to stop holding meaningless photo-ops and BBQ chats and show some actual leadership."

Other than a minimum wage increase, which Ivanova said effects a relatively small amount of people, no other policies for employment growth have been implemented by the Liberals under Christy Clark.

“The economy is recovering a little bit but unemployment remains the same,” says Ivanova.

She said that most of the jobs created since the beginning of the recession have been part time.

“Yes, we are creating jobs,” Ivanova said. “But the types of jobs we are creating are temporary, part time, a lot of times they don’t pay very highly.”

A government spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Grace scott is completing her practicum at The Tyee

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