The Drayton Valley statistical region had the distinction of having Alberta’s lowest unemployment rate in April.
According to the latest Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada, the sprawling Banff-Jasper-Rocky Mountain House and Athabasca-Grande Prairie-Peace River region had an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent.
The next lowest was the Red Deer Region at 6.2 per cent.
Across the province, both the Camrose-Drumheller and Lethbridge-Medicine Hat regions held relatively steady at 7.4 per cent, while the Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake region had the highest unemployment in the province at 8.4 per cent.
In the two big cities, Edmonton had a 7.5 per cent unemployment rate, while Calgary improved slightly to 6.9 per cent.
Provincewide, Alberta’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.0 per cent in April 2026, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous month and down 0.2 percentage points from the same month last year.
Employment increased in the private sector (+9,400) and decreased in the public sector (-800) and among the self-employed (-7,600).
Alberta’s unemployment rate was the fifth highest in Canada. The national unemployment rate at 6.9 per cent was 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous month.
In April 2026, employment rose in seven out of 16 industries compared to the previous month. The industries with the most employment gains were: wholesale and retail trade; business, building and other support services; and professional, scientific and technical services.
Canada sheds jobs
Nationwide, the unemployment rate climbed to 6.9 per cent in April.
Economists had largely expected the economy to add jobs in April and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.7 per cent.
While Canada added 67-thousand more jobs on a year-over-year basis, StatCan says the country has lost 112-thousand jobs since January.
The last time Canada lost so many jobs in a four-month period window in non-pandemic times, was in 2009 when the economy lost 241-thousand within that many months.
United States exceeds expectations
U.S. employers delivered 115,000 new jobs in April despite an economic shock due to the ongoing conflict of the Iran war.
The results were better than the 65,000 jobs forecasters had expected for the month.
The country’s unemployment rate remained at 4.3 per cent
~ with files from The Canadian Press
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