Health care, natural resources, public administration, information/culture/recreation and technology sectors are leading Surrey’s jobs recovery
The July 2022 Surrey Labour Market Intelligence Report has been released by the Surrey Board of Trade.
“Tracking labour market trends in an ongoing way is important to ensure our policy framework is focused on developing a suitably skilled workforce, a broad availability of good-quality education as a foundation for future training, and a close matching of skills supply to the needs of enterprises and labour markets. It enables workers and enterprises to adjust to changes in technology and markets, and to anticipate and prepare for the skills needs of the future,” said Anita Huberman, President & CEO, Surrey Board of Trade. “This will fuel innovation, investment, economic diversification and competitiveness, as well as social and occupational mobility.”
Employment in Surrey in June 2022 was an estimated impressive 3.8%, or an over 11,300 jobs, above employment before the pandemic in February 2020, and over 36,000 higher than the lowest job levels in April 2020 for a 13.3% lift.
In June 2022, the Surrey economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continued to be driven by knowledge-based industries and resource industries, with a lagging continued recovery in the construction and larger service-producing sectors.
Health care, natural resources, public administration, information/culture/recreation and technology sectors are leading the Surrey jobs recovery. An exception to knowledge-based growth is growth in resources, which are over 1,600 above pre-pandemic employment levels. The single largest growth in terms of occupational categories has been in business, finance and administration positions with an increase of 7,296 jobs.
While Surrey’s construction sector has recovered significantly in the last few months, its employment level is still down by 3,647 jobs. The large accommodation and food services sector has finally recovered to almost the February 2020 jobs level. While wholesale and retail trade, and finance, insurance and real estate sectors are still below pre-pandemic employment, the important information, culture and recreation sector is up 1,602 jobs for a 16.9% increase above February 2020.
Sales and service, and trades, transport and equipment operator positions (the latter to a much smaller degree) remain lower than before the pandemic. Sales and service jobs in Surrey are responsible for a large majority of the employment deficit at almost 10,000.
