The February 2022 Surrey Labour Market Intelligence Report has been released by the Surrey Board of Trade.
In February 2022, Surrey’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be driven by a two-pronged strength: knowledge-based industries and resource industries. Employment in Surrey in February 2022 was an estimated 1.7% or 4,900 jobs above employment before the pandemic in February 2020, and almost 30,000 higher than the lowest job levels in April 2020.
“Improvement continues in Surrey – in December 2021, seven out of 15 industry categories had job levels still below February 2020,” said Anita Huberman, President & CEO, Surrey Board of Trade. “But two months later, in February 2022, we see a significant improvement where only three of 15 industries are still below pre-pandemic job levels.”
Surrey Employment COVID-19 Impacts BY INDUSTRY – February 2020 to February 2022
The largest employment sectors in Surrey in February 2022 were:
1. Wholesale & retail trade (55,296)
2. Health care & social assistance (40,296)
3. Transportation & warehousing (28,360)
4. Manufacturing (28,332)
5. Construction (23,989)
6. Professional, scientific and technical (21,900)
The sectors most impacted and still not fully recovered in Surrey are estimated to be:
· Construction is still down over -8,655 jobs or -26.5%;
· Finance, insurance & real estate is down by -2,817 jobs or -15.2%;
· Business, building & other support is down over -2,331 jobs or -16.0%;
· Accommodation & food services is lower than pre-pandemic levels by over -2,269 jobs or -11.9%;
· “Other services” (personal services, high touch jobs) is down almost -2,180 jobs or -16.2%;
· While utilities only lost 487 jobs since the pandemic, this represents a -28.9% drop in this relatively small Surrey industry – the largest percentage drop among all industries.
The sectors showing the greatest recovery since February 2020 in Surrey are estimated to be:
· Health care & social assistance is up almost by over 6,163 jobs or 18.1%;
· Public administration employment is up almost 3,825 jobs or 40.6% in Surrey, perhaps from sustained back to school trends since Christmas;
· Wholesale & retail trade has rebounded with almost 3,692 new jobs for a 7.2% increase;
· Gaining 2,094 jobs, the natural resources sector saw a large percentage recovery in Surrey at 69.6% since February 2020;
· Professional, scientific and technical services have increased employment by 1,553 over pre-COVID levels for an 8.0% since February 2020.
Manufacturing (1,498 or 5.6%), transportation & warehousing (1,131 or 4.2%) and information, culture & recreation (848 or 8.9%) showed smaller growth in Surrey but still higher employment than before the pandemic started.
