“Eby’s Jobs Plan: Fewer Jobs, Fewer Opportunities, Fewer Reasons to Stay”

The latest Statistics Canada labour market report paints a grim picture of life under David Eby’s NDP government, says Gavin Dew, MLA for Kelowna–Mission and the Critic for JEDI: Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation.

British Columbia lost 16,000 jobs in July, including 7,900 in the goods-producing sector alone, while youth unemployment surged to its highest level since 2010. 

Meanwhile, new business confidence data shows B.C. entrepreneurs are more pessimistic than nearly anywhere else in Canada.

“We’re in a vicious cycle,” said Dew. “Businesses are too squeezed to hire, young people can’t find jobs, and more and more are giving up and leaving.

Business confidence is at rock bottom because of structural failure under an NDP government with no economic compass.”

Key Facts from July Labour Market Report:

• 16,000 jobs lost in BC, with steep declines in construction, natural resources, and other high-value sectors

• Youth employment rate has fallen to levels not seen since 2010, excluding the pandemic

• Kamloops’ unemployment jumped to 10.7%, Nanaimo to 7.8%, and Victoria to 4.8%

• Long-term unemployment reached its highest share in 27 years

• Goods-producing industries saw 7,900 jobs vanish, including 2,500 in natural resources and 7,600 in construction

Business Sentiment Plunges:

• 68% of small businesses say taxes and red tape are their top cost pressure, higher than wages, borrowing costs, or demand

• B.C. saw the second-worst drop in business confidence nationwide, falling to just 45.3, below the breakeven point of 50

• Entrepreneurs cite heavy regulation, rising input costs, and economic uncertainty as growth killers

“We haven’t seen numbers this bad since the NDP 1990s,” said Dew. “And with every month of economic stagnation, more young British Columbians are asking if they even have a future here. We’re losing some of our best and brightest young people because they can’t get opportunities here.”

Dew points to recent interprovincial migration data showing nearly 70,000 people left BC last year, most under the age of 40. “This is an exodus. When opportunity dies, mobility rises. They’re not leaving because they want to, they’re fleeing economic failure.”

“This is David Eby’s legacy in the making: debt piling up, jobs drying up, hope running out, and British Columbians packing up.”

“With numbers like this, it’s no wonder Eby fired his last jobs minister,” said Dew. “It’s time to stop punishing job creators and workers, and start unleashing the private sector, before there’s no one left to build BC’s future.”