Unemployment in the region rose for the first time in three months.
The Four County Labour Market Planning Board says the unemployment rate went up by 0.2 percent in the month of December to finish the year at 3 percent.
There were 3,000 net jobs lost with full-time employment (-4,100) making up a majority of the losses.
Both goods (-700) and service-producing (-2,300) sectors saw net job losses with wholesale and retail (-2,000), and warehousing (-1,500) making up most of the losses.
The provincial unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percent to 5.8 percent.
The annual adjusted unemployment rate for 2021 was 4.2%, 3.1 percentage points lower than that for 2020 which was 7.3%.
The 2021 annual rate is comparable to pre-pandemic levels which was 4.4% in 2019.
