The jobless rate fell by 0.1 percentage points month-over-month to 5.5 per cent, mainly because of gains in the high tech, education and public administration sectors.Year-over-year, unemployment was up by 0.6 points.
However, the region has been adding jobs steadily since the beginning of the year, and August's gain follows a 5,800-job increase between June and July.
"The region has added about 26,000 new jobs since the beginning of the year, which is a four-per-cent growth rate so far this year," said Statistics Canada analyst Vincent Ferrao. "Employment's picked up since the declines in the second half of the year, and there have been increases every month except January, when there was little change."
Mr. Ferrao noted that the most significant news for August was that the 5.3-per-cent unemployment rate for the Ottawa side alone was the lowest of all the large Ontario cities. Employment in Ottawa has grown by 5.7 per cent or roughly 26,400 jobs since the beginning of the year.
The high-tech sector was the biggest contributor to the employment gain in the Ottawa-Gatineau region between July and August, with the industry seeing its largest month-over-month jobs addition - 3,300 - since January 2005, bringing the total number of people working in the industry to 64,200 in August.
Year-over-year gains for the sector were more modest at 2.3 per cent or roughly 1,800 jobs, but Mr. Ferrao said the high-tech industry had been seeing gains every month between April and August.
"There seems to be a more recent upward trend developing here since March for the high-tech industry, with a gain of about 7,000 jobs in the last five months," he said.
On a national basis, a greater-than-expected number of jobs were created last month because of strong activity in construction and education, leading the jobless rate unchanged at a 33-year low of six per cent.
Employment rose by 23,300 jobs, compared to the analyst forecast of 18,000 new additions.
