The Surrey Board of Trade’s latest labour market report indicates a 3.7 per cent growth in employment in Surrey –that’s nearly 12,000 more jobs – in November 2023 above the city’s employment figures in November 2022, and almost 5.8 per cent or 18,400 more jobs than in November 2021.
“Job growth was driven by key service sectors and mixed growth in goods-producing sectors,” said Anita Huberman, CEO of the board. “Over the last 12 months, except for slight growth in resources and construction, Surrey experienced employment growth totally in service-producing sectors.”
Huberman said the biggest job sectors in Surrey in November were were “mainly traditional staple sectors” such as wholesale and retail trade (54,752 or 16.2 per cent of Surrey’s jobs), followed by health care and social assistance (40,534 or 12 per cent of jobs), construction (32,399 or 9.6 per cent of jobs) and transportation and warehousing (31,934 or 9.4 per cent of jobs).
Professional, scientific and technical services employment led the way in job growth between November 2022 and November 2023 with an increase of almost 12.5 per cent or over 3,000 jobs, followed by transportation and warehousing, which saw an increase of 9.6 per cent (2,800 jobs), with “other services” growing by 18.9 per cent (2,200 jobs). Finance, insurance, real estate and rental and leasing increased by 13 per cent – almost 2,000 jobs – since November 2022.
Conversely, the December 2023 Surrey Labour Report produced by the Surrey Board of Trade indicates that sectors in decline over that same period were business, building and other support services with the number of jobs declining by 19.3 per cent (2,964 jobs), while manufacturing saw a 2.6 per cent drop in employment over the last 12 months (736 jobs) and Surrey’s information, culture and recreation sector employment fell by 3.2 per cent, or 428 jobs.