The City of Prince George has released a new snapshot of PG's economy that captures data showing how the city has been doing in the last month.
Info-graph. (via City of Prince George)That data includes employment rate, housing sales, housing construction, building permits, business licences and more.
Employment rate
In October 2018, Prince George's unemployment rate was 4.8 per cent, which is a decrease of 0.4 per cent compared to the same month in 2017, when it was 5.2 per cent.
The city’s employment rate, on the other hand, was 65.2 per cent, which was a decrease from the same month in October 2017, when it was 68.3 per cent, but the employment rate is still higher than the provincial rate of 62.1 per cent.
However, employment numbers in the Cariboo Economic Development region have decreased. The total number was 78,700 in October 2018, which is a decrease of 2,600 jobs compared to the previous month.
The Cariboo region job numbers have been reduced by 600 since January 2018 when total employment was 79,300. Job numbers decreased by 900 in the construction category while the retail trade category decreased by 800 jobs.
Housing
The average house sale price (single-detached) for October 2018 was $328,678, with 83 units sold in Prince George, according to the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board.
The same time last year, the average house sale price was $322,118, with 87 units sold; that's an increase of 2.0 per cent.
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported 21 (12 single-family dwellings and nine multiples) total housing starts in Prince George during October 2018, compared to 22 (21 single-family dwelling and one multiple) in October 2017.
This is a decrease of 4.5 per cent over the same month last year.
But as far as building permits go, the city issued 56 building permits valued at $15,666,634 in October 2018, including: $9,983,934 in single-family permits, $1,600,000 in multiple-family permits, $3,917,100 in commercial permits, and $165,600 in industrial permits. That's a 32.9 per cent increase in total dollar value of permits over October 2017 (46 permits were issued at a value of $11,784,612).
In October, the city also issued 13 new business licences and the Prince George Airport saw an increase of 4.3 per cent (or 1,891 more passengers) than October 2017, when passenger volume was 43,864.
The year to date, passenger traffic is also up by 2.1 per cent over volume recorded in 2017.
Up-to-date stats on Prince George’s economy are also available through an online dashboard that provides relevant economic data.
