Labour Force Survey Monthly
Labour Force Survey, December 2022
released January 6, 2023
Prince Edward Island Employment
Unemployment Rate By Province (seasonally adjusted, in percentage)
| Month | Can | NL | PE | NS | NB | QC | ON | MB | SK | AB | BC |
| December 2022 | 5.0 | 10.1 | 5.6 | 6.7 | 8.1 | 4.0 | 5.3 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 5.8 | 4.2 |
| November 2022 | 5.1 | 10.7 | 6.8 | 6.0 | 7.3 | 3.8 | 5.5 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 5.8 | 4.4 |
| December 2021 | 6.0 | 11.9 | 7.7 | 8.1 | 8.2 | 4.7 | 6.1 | 5.3 | 5.5 | 7.5 | 5.4 |
| Year-over-year change (pp) | -1.0 | -1.8 | -2.1 | -1.4 | -0.1 | -0.7 | -0.8 | -0.9 | -1.4 | -1.7 | -1.2 |
| Monthly change (pp) | -0.1 | -0.6 | -1.2 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.2 | -0.2 | 0.0 | -0.1 | 0.0 | -0.2 |
Summary
Statistics Canada’s LFS shows P.E.I.’s seasonally adjusted employment in December totalled 85,100. This is an increase of 1,600 from one year ago and up 400 from November 2022. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was down 2.1 percentage points from December 2021 to 5.6 per cent. This is down 1.2 percentage points from November 2022. The total labour force has decreased by 200 (-0.2 per cent) compared to December 2021 and is down by 600 (-0.7 per cent) compared to November 2022.
The year-over-year increase in employment was due to an increase of 2,000 (2.9 per cent) in full-time employment, while part-time employment decreased by 400 (-2.6 per cent). The services sector saw an increase of 2,200 as compared to December 2021, while the goods-producing sector decreased by 600 over the same period (see table below for year-over-year employment gains and losses by industry).
The number of unemployed persons in December on Prince Edward Island was 5,100, down 1,100 from one month ago and down 1,900 compared to December 2021. Long-term unemployment—the number of people who had been continuously unemployed for 27 weeks or more—fell to 500 in December. Expressed as a proportion of the total labour force, long-term unemployment decreased from 1.0 per cent in November to 0.6 per cent in December. The labour force participation rate in December was 64.0 per cent, down 2.3 percentage points from one year ago.
The three-month moving average unemployment rate used by the Employment Insurance program for the Charlottetown region was 4.5 per cent in December, down from 5.3 per cent in November. The minimum draw period and hours needed to qualify remain at 14 weeks and 700 hours for this region. The rate in the PEI region in December was 8.2 per cent, down from 9.4 per cent in November. The minimum draw period falls from 20 weeks to 18 weeks and hours needed to qualify rises from 560 hours to 595 hours for this region. For more information, please refer to Employment Insurance (EI) - Canada.ca.
Nationally, employment increased by 104,000 in December (0.5 per cent) as compared to November. The unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percentage points to 5.0 per cent. At the industry level, employment in the goods-producing sector increased by 22,200 (0.6 per cent), while employment in the services-producing sector increased by 81,700 (0.5 per cent). Provincially, seasonally adjusted employment increased in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan in December. There was little change in the other provinces.
National average hourly wages for employees rose 5.1 per cent ($1.57) on a year-over-year basis in December. By province, year-over-year wage growth was highest in December in New Brunswick (7.8 per cent; $2.03), Quebec (6.9 per cent; $2.02), and Prince Edward Island (6.6 per cent; $1.71).
Unadjusted for seasonality, the national three-month moving average unemployment rate in December was 4.6 per cent. The rate for population groups designated as visible minorities was 5.5 per cent. Visible minority groups for which the rate is higher than the average were Black Canadians at 7.7 per cent, Korean Canadians at 6.4 per cent, West Asian Canadians at 6.1 per cent, and South Asian Canadians at 5.6 per cent.
Employment gains (+)/ losses (-) between December 2021 and December 2022 occurred in the following sectors on Prince Edward Island*:
| Goods-producing sector | -600 | Service-providing sector | 2,200 | |
| Agriculture | -900 | Trade (Retail/Wholesale): | -1,200 | |
| Other Primary Industries | -600 | Transport & Warehousing: | -400 | |
| Manufacturing | 0 | Finance, Insurance, Real Estate: | 200 | |
| Construction | 1,000 | Business Services: | 1,300 | |
| Utilities | -100 | Professional, Scientific and Technical: | -100 | |
| Educational Services: | 800 | |||
| Health & Social Services: | 1,200 | |||
| Public Administration: | 1,000 | |||
| Information, Culture and Recreation: | -300 | |||
| Accommodation & Food services: | 0 | |||
| Other Services: | -400 |
PEI Unemployment Rate
(Seasonally Adjusted)
* Components may not sum to total due to rounding
Notes:
1. The LFS estimates for December are for the week of December 4 to 10, 2022.
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 February 10, 2023.
Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey Estimates, released January 6, 2023.
For more information and links to tables, refer to the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey release for December 2022.
Related downloads for this release:
Monthly Labour Force Survey report - PDF (100KB)