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March 19, 2025 - 7:00 AM
Statistics Canada says job vacancies have been on the decline and unemployment on the rise in the Thompson-Okanagan region.
At the end of 2023, there were 15,040 job vacancies in the Thompson-Okanagan, and a year later there were 12,355, according to a data report released by StatsCan, March 18.
The region followed the provincial trend since in B.C. job vacancies dropped from 111,435 to 92,265.
There was a steep drop in job vacancies to 11,530 in the third quarter of 2024 in the Thompson-Okanagan before it rebounded, but year-over-year the trend is heading downward.
The ratio of unemployment to job vacancy has also been increasing. This means that for each unemployed person there are fewer positions available.
In 2022, there were 1.1 unemployed people for every available job, at the end of 2024 there were 2.8 unemployed people for each job available.
“This increase was due to an uptick in unemployment as the number of vacancies was little changed in the fourth quarter,” the StatsCan report said.
B.C.’s unemployment rate rose from 5.2 per cent to six per cent from February 2024 to February 2025, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey data released earlier this month.
The unemployment rates in Kelowna and Kamloops were slightly lower than the provincial average. Kelowna's unemployment rate went from 4.8 per cent in October to 5.3 per cent in February, and Kamloops went from 3 per cent to 4.8 per cent.
The good news for folks hunting for jobs is that wages have continued to increase. The average hourly wage across the country went from $26.35 to $28.30 between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024.
Thompson-Okanagan hourly wages were a bit lower than the national average at $27.25.
The average hourly wage for jobs that require a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education was nearly double that of jobs that require a high school diploma at $42.75 compared to $21.60.
StatCan said part of the reason the offered hourly wages increased is the fact that more jobs opened up in fields that generally offer higher wages, rather than a broad shift towards employers offering employees more money.
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