The Surrey Board of Trade’s latest labour market “intelligence report” indicates that roughly 33,000 local jobs that were lost to the pandemic have been recovered.
“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,” says Anita Huberman, CEO of the board.
“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.”
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This is the seventh such report the board of trade has released. It notes that while Surrey lost more than 38,000 jobs during the first five months of the pandemic, since July 2020 the city has experienced an “upward trajectory” in jobs recovered with more than half of these in the last quarter of 2020.
The construction industry has seen a steady downfall in jobs since since September, seeing the greatest overall job loss since the outset of the pandemic. While jobs related to health care and social assistance were lost during the first six months, these experienced a sharp increase in the last quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021.
By occupation, more than 12,000 jobs in sales and service were lost in Surrey since the pandemic was declared, more than 3,700 jobs in trades, transportation and equipment operation were lost, and more than 2,400 all told in manufacturing and utilities, arts and culture, sports and recreation.
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