The NWT’s latest labour force data shows a territorial economy that, from some perspectives, is at or near its weakest so far this century.
Data from the NWT Bureau of Statistics, released last Friday, included the following headline figures for November:
62.9 percent of NWT residents aged 15 or over were employed;
33.7 percent of NWT residents aged 15 or over were not participating in the labour force, meaning they didn’t have a job and were not looking for one either.
That 33.7 percent means nearly 12,000 of the 35,300 NWT residents aged 15 or over aren’t working and aren’t trying to find work, according to the statistics bureau’s estimates.
In other words, two in three working-age people in the territory – 66.3 percent – are employed or looking for work. That’s called the participation rate and it hasn’t been this low all century.
At its 21st-century height, in 2012, the NWT’s participation rate was 80.1 percent. Even in the opening months of Covid-19, it didn’t drop below 69 percent.
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The fall is ordinarily a time when the territory’s workforce contracts a little. The participation rate is almost always lower in November than it was in July or August. But October and November this year are the first time the rate has fallen below 68 percent.
Other data from the same survey tells a similar story.
The employment rate of 62.9 percent – the number of working-age people in work – has only been lower twice this century: June and July 2020, at the pandemic’s height, and even then only by about a percentage point.
But whereas the unemployment rate in mid-2020 shot up to more than 10 percent as people tried to find work that wasn’t there, the unemployment rate this time around – people looking for work without getting it – has remained essentially stable at around five percent, implying more people are simply dropping out of the workforce entirely.
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The NWT Bureau of Statistics summary, which tends not to deal in bombast or provide extensive commentary, has noted for several months now that “monthly employment rates since May have remained consistently below the 10-year historical average.”
Meanwhile, the national picture is entirely different.
Across Canada, employment increased for the third consecutive month in November, led by a 1.1-percent gain in Alberta. The national participation rate has remained largely stable at just above 65 percent.
Closer study of the NWT’s jobs data suggests communities outside Yellowknife are bearing the brunt.
For both September and November, the statistics bureau said the sharpest drops in employment rate came among people living in smaller communities.
The NWT’s economy has already been affected by hundreds of lay-offs at the Ekati diamond mine this past summer, some of which involved workers based in the North.
The Diavik mine will close in March 2026, a move that will mean the loss of hundreds more jobs, though a few hundred positions will remain for at least part of the three-year active closure process.
The NWT government has been pushing for a major infrastructure project, like a highway or hydro expansion, to receive federal backing and help drag the economy through what looks set to be a difficult period.
So far, none of those projects have received the green light, though Ottawa is increasingly looking to spend military cash in the North to defend against perceptions of Russian aggression (and even concerns about its near neighbour, the United States).
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