(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Jaryn Vecchio

Job Numbers

P.A. & northern Sask. see job loss in 2022, good year for job growth for rest of province

Jan 6, 2023 | 12:04 PM

Despite the province seeing its best job growth over the past 10 years in 2022, Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan had a tough 12 months.

According to Statistics Canada, the region around 600 fewer people were employed at the end of 2022 than when the year started.

The construction sector struggled the most, losing around 1,900 positions.

Currently, there are around 6,600 people working in construction in Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan, down from roughly 8,500 at the end of 2021. The sector only hit 8,000 workers once during the year, in October, after peaking at 9,300 in October 2021.

The accommodation and food services sector also had a tough 2022. Around 1,600 fewer people are working in the industry compared to the start of 2022. This isn’t a big surprise as the sector has been seeing a drop in numbers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been struggling to fully rebound.

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Despite an overall job loss in 2022, some sectors still had strong years. This includes the manufacturing sector which filled around 1,600 positions and the health care and social assistance sector which added roughly 900 jobs.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of jobs available across the region according to SaskJobs.

Saskatchewan’s Regions

Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan had the worst job growth among the province’s five regions.

The other four regions had at least 1,100 more people working than at the start of 2022.

Saskatoon-Biggar had the best year, filling 7,100 jobs. Yorkton-Melville came in second, adding 2,700 workers, while Swift Current-Moose Jaw was just under, adding approximately 2,400 positions.

Regina-Moose Mountain, which employs the second most people in the province, filled roughly 1,100 jobs.

Overall, Saskatchewan was able to add around 12,700 jobs.

Year’s Past

The job loss in 2022 for Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan was the fourth time it’s happened to the region over the past 10 years.

Dating back to 2016, the region has continued a pattern of one good year followed by a bad year. Unsurprisingly because of the start of the pandemic, 2020 was the worst of them all as the region employed around 4,000 fewer people at the end of the year compared to the end of 2019.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow