Alberta gained over 20K jobs in September bucking national trend

Alberta is reversing its job losses from the past two months, adding 23,000 jobs in September, an increase that's going against the national trend. According to Statistics Canada, the Canadian economy lost 68,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate ticked up to 6.5% where it stood at the start of 2026, while Alberta's unemployment rate dropped by 0.4% to 6.4%. One chief economist with Service Credit Union says Alberta's resilience could reflect lower exposure to tariffs and stronger population growth. In terms of impact, we probably would see some, but it will be limited probably more to the manufacturing sector, which has been a sector that's been a bit more underperforming in recent months or over the past year and probably affected by those tariffs. St. Arnaud says because Alberta is proving to be a bit more resilient, he expects it to fare better than other provinces in the future. For example, 80% of the job gains over the past year have been in Alberta. So it's just quite impressive considering we're not even 13% of the whole labour market in Canada. However, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce warns that despite this, economic and political uncertainty could cause businesses to delay investment and expansion. Anytime we have a level of uncertainty, whether it's through the tariffs, the pandemic, the referendum, And if there isn't consistency, we're just not going to see the capital investment that we need to. This StatsCan report is the first to fully reflect the recent 50% U.S. tariffs put in place in August. Nicole Healy, CBC News, Edmonton.