NDP Critic for Economic Development and Innovation Deron Bilous issued the following statement regarding the May job numbers from Statistics Canada:

“Alberta families, workers, and small businesses continue to struggle with the loss of another 1,000 jobs last month. 

“Our province continues to lag behind the rest of Canada due to Jason Kenney and the UCP’s mishandling of the pandemic that forced our health-care system to the brink and damaged our economy.

“Jason Kenney promised jobs, but over the last two months we’ve seen the loss of almost 14,000 jobs and 25,000 people giving up looking for work and leaving the workforce altogether. 

“In order to protect jobs as we reopen our province, we need to support small businesses and workers. And as we look ahead past the pandemic, we need to build a recovery that focuses on diversifying our economy while creating stable, good-paying jobs.”