Labour Force Survey Monthly

Labour Force Survey, March 2024

released April 5, 2024

Prince Edward Island Employment

Unemployment Rate By Province (seasonally adjusted, in percentage)

Month	Can	NL	PE	NS	NB	QC	ON	MB	SK	AB	BC
March 2024	6.1	10.1	7.4	6.2	7.8	5.0	6.7	5.0	5.4	6.3	5.5
February 2024	5.8	10.2	7.0	6.0	6.9	4.7	6.5	4.5	5.0	6.2	5.2
March 2023	5.1	10.4	6.7	5.5	5.9	4.3	5.3	4.7	4.7	5.7	4.6
Year-over-year change (pp)	1.0	-0.3	0.7	0.7	1.9	0.7	1.4	0.3	0.7	0.6	0.9
Monthly change (pp)	0.3	-0.1	0.4	0.2	0.9	0.3	0.2	0.5	0.4	0.1	0.3

Summary

Statistics Canada’s LFS shows P.E.I.’s seasonally adjusted employment in March totaled 91,900, an increase of 4,700 from one year ago and a decrease of 100 from last month. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.4 per cent, up 0.7 percentage points as compared to March 2023 and up 0.4 percentage points from last month. The total labour force totaled 99,200 in March, up 5,700 (6.1 per cent) compared to March 2023 and up 300 (0.3 per cent) compared to February 2024. The participation rate was 66.7 per cent in March, no change from February.

The year-over-year increase in employment was due to an increase of 5,700 (7.7 per cent) in full-time employment, while part-time employment fell by 1,000 (-7.4 per cent).  Full-time employment totaled 79,400 in March, while part-time employment was 12,500. The services sector saw an increase of 3,900 as compared to March 2023, while the goods-producing sector increased by 700 over the same period (see table below for year-over-year employment gains and losses by industry), to total 70,400 and 21,500 respectively.

Employment gains (+)/ losses (-) between March 2023 and March 2024 occurred in the following sectors on Prince Edward Island¹:

Goods-producing sector	700		Service-providing sector	3,900
Agriculture	700		Trade (Retail/Wholesale):	-800
Other Primary Industries	-400		Transport & Warehousing:	1,500
Manufacturing	-300		Finance, Insurance, Real Estate:	400
Construction	600		Business Services:	-300
Utilities	200		Professional, Scientific and Technical:	800
			Educational Services:	200
			Health & Social Services:	-100
			Public Administration:	0
			Information, Culture and Recreation:	800
			Accommodation & Food services:	1,200
			Other Services:	300

The number of unemployed persons in March on Prince Edward Island was 7,300, up 400 from one month ago and up 1,000 as compared to March 2023. Long-term unemployment—the number of people who had been continuously unemployed for 27 weeks or more—was 800 in March, down from 1,300 in February. Expressed as a proportion of the total labour force, long-term unemployment was 0.8 per cent in March, down from 1.3 per cent in February.

PEI Unemployment Rate (Seasonally Adjusted)

According to the Labour Force Survey, year-over-year growth in PEI’s population aged 15 years and older has been at 3.0 per cent or higher since February 2022. The employment rate—the proportion of the population aged 15 years and older who are employed—can help assess whether employment growth is keeping pace with population growth. In March, PEI’s employment rate was 61.8 per cent, down 0.2 percentage points from February and up 0.6 percentage points as compared to March 2023. This indicates that growth in employment has outpaced the growth in population aged 15 years and over since March 2023. However, the rate has declined for four consecutive months indicating that population growth has outpaced employment growth in recent months.

The three-month moving average unemployment rate used by the Employment Insurance program for the Charlottetown region was 5.2 per cent in March, down from 5.6 per cent in February. The minimum draw period and the hours needed to qualify remain at 14 weeks and 700 hours for this region. The rate in the PEI region in March was 10.2 per cent, up from 10.0 per cent in February. The minimum draw period increases from 20 to 21 weeks and the hours needed to qualify decreases from 560 to 525 hours for this region.For more information, please refer to Employment Insurance (EI) - Canada.ca.

NATIONAL

Nationally, employment was little changed in March 2024 as compared to February and the unemployment rate increased 0.3 percentage points to 6.1 per cent. At the industry level, employment in the goods-producing sector rose by 29,900 (0.7 per cent), while employment in the services-producing sector decreased by 32,000 (-0.2 per cent). Goods sector employment gains were led by construction and manufacturing. Provincially, seasonally adjusted employment in March increased in only Ontario and British Columbia, with notable declines in Quebec, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

National average hourly wages for employees rose 5.1 per cent ($1.69) on a year-over-year basis in March. By province, year-over-year wage growth was highest in March in British Columbia (8.0 per cent; $2.69), New Brunswick (6.4 per cent; $1.82), Prince Edward Island (5.0 per cent; $1.41), and Ontario (4.9 per cent; $1.69). Manitoba saw the lowest year-over-year increase in the average hourly wage at 2.4 per cent or $0.70.

Unadjusted for seasonality, the national three-month moving average unemployment rate in March was 6.2 per cent. The rate for population groups designated as visible minorities was 8.0 per cent. Visible minority groups for which the rate was higher than the average were Black Canadians at 11.8 per cent, Arab Canadians at 9.8 per cent, West Asian Canadians at 9.6 per cent, and Latin American Canadians at 8.6 per cent.

Canada Employment

 

¹ Components may not sum to total due to rounding

Notes:
1.    The LFS estimates for March are for the week of March 10 to 16, 2024.
2.    The LFS estimates are based on a sample and are therefore subject to sampling variability. For more information, see the Statistics Canada publication "Interpreting Monthly Changes in Employment from the Labour Force Survey."
3.    The next release of the LFS will be on May 10, 2024.

Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey Estimates, released April 5, 2024.

For more information and links to tables, refer to the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey release for March 2024.

Related downloads for this release:

Monthly Labour Force Survey report - PDF (100KB)