Employment up locally in October

Unemployment in the North Bay area was one per cent below the national average in October, coming in at 5.3 locally.

Nationally, the jobless figure was 6.3 per cent.

We can’t compare the local figure to October 2016, because estimates for the North Bay area that month were suppressed.

At the time, Stats Canada said they were below the confidentiality threshold.

Meantime, employment locally was at 58.1 per cent last month.

That’s up 2.7 per cent compared to a year ago.