ANITA Huberman, CEO, Surrey Board of Trade, in response to the 7th Surrey Labour Market Intelligence Report, said: “From the last report there was a 9,000 job gap and 30,000 jobs recovered, so we are on a positive economic recovery trajectory for Surrey.” She added: “We still need to pay attention to the 5,000 jobs that are yet to be recovered since the pandemic began. Surrey is going to be the largest city in BC very soon – and to say that we have recovered 33,000 jobs since the end of July 2020 is positive news for our city’s economy.”

Highlights:

• In the first five months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Surrey lost more than 38,000 jobs. Since the end of July 2020, Surrey has seen an upward trajectory in the number of jobs, recovering over 33,000 of those jobs (over 87%) with almost half of these recovered jobs being attributed to the last quarter of 2020.
• Though March 2021 still showed an increase in the total number of jobs, Q1 2021 shows the slowest growth in jobs since July 2021.
• The total net deficit of jobs in Surrey since February 2020 is less than 5,000 jobs.
• Though job loss in the construction industry seems to have been contained in the Summer of 2020, the industry has seen continuous downfall since September, posting the greatest overall job loss since the beginning of the pandemic.
• Similar to most industries, Health Care and Social Assistance in Surrey saw job losses in the first six months of the pandemic. However, in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, this industry saw a sharp increase in jobs, for an overall gain of 10% since February 2020.
• Employment losses by occupation since the beginning of COVID-19 are seen in Sales and Services occupations (over 12,000 jobs); Trades, Transportation and Equipment Operators (over 3,700 jobs); Manufacturing and Utilities occupations (over 1,200 jobs); and Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport occupations (over 1,200 jobs) in Surrey.
• Though Sales and Services occupations had seen a decent recovery in the last half of 2020, these occupations saw job losses in Q1 2021.
• The following sectors posted the greatest increase in number of jobs by March 2021, when compared to February 2021: Health (7.6% increase); Natural and Applied Sciences occupations (27.4% increase); and Natural Resources and Agricultural Production occupations (23.3% increase).

Report: https://businessinsurrey.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SBOT-LM-Intel-Report-7.pdf