For the second consecutive month the increase in the unemployment rate, compared to both last year and last month, is considered to be substantial. In fact, this is the highest unemployment rate reported for the month of February in the past two decades and economic region 240 has the highest unemployment rate in the province.
At the same time, the participation rate - the percentage of people working or looking for work compared to the population aged 15 and over - decreased by 0.7 percentage points to 58.1 per cent. By comparison, the unemployment rate in February 2010 for Nova Scotia was 9.3 per cent and for Canada was 8.2 per cent, both down from the previous month.
