New Brunswick's jobless rate holds firm at 8.9% in February

New Brunswick's unemployment rate held steady at 8.9 per cent in February, according to the Statistics Canada monthly labour force report released Friday.

• New Brunswick's jobless rate jumps to 9.4% in December
• New Brunswick's unemployment rate jumps to 9.9%

But this is animprovement from the same period last year, when the unemployment rate was 9.9 per cent.

Canada as a whole added 15,000 jobs in February as the jobless rate declined to 6.6 per cent.New Brunswick was one of five provinces where the rate stayed essentially the same.

Within the province, the unemployment rates still show quite a range and in some cases are lower than last year.

The highest jobless rate was inCambellton-Miramichi, where it reacheda whopping 16.4 per cent in February up from15.4 per cent in January and about where it was in February a year ago.

In theMoncton-Richibuctoregion, the jobless rate was at9.5per cent, up from 8.9 per cent in January and 8.1 per cent a year ago.

In three regions of the province, the employment picture appeared to be slightly brighter in February than it dida year ago.

In theFredericton-Oromocto area, the rate rose to 6.3 per cent in February from 5.7 per cent in January, but was down from 8.9 per cent last February.

In the Saint John-St. Stephen region, the February unemployment rate was at 7.8 per cent, up from 7.4 per cent in January but down from nine per cent last year.

In the Edmundston-Woodstock region, the unemployment rate rose to7.7 per cent in Januaryfrom 6.1 per cent in February, but it was still lower than the rate of 9.3 per cent a year ago.

Nova Scotia's unemployment rate rose to 8.1 per cent in February from 7.7 per cent in Januaryand Prince Edward Island's rate increased to 10 per cent from 9.8 per cent.

Across the country, an increase in the number of people working full time offset a decline in the number of people working part time, Statistics Canada said.

In the past 12 months as a whole, February's total means Canada has cranked out288,000jobs the past year, the agency said.