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Jeff Holmes has been an employee at Windsor Assembly since September but he already has between 700 and 800 people below him on the seniority list.

Among 1,200 new hires at FCA Canada’s minivan plant, Holmes, 26, feels secure enough in his job to move out of his parents’ house and buy a new car, preferably a Jeep model.

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“The future is exciting,” said Holmes. “I’ve been looking to buy a new home for two years, and now that I have seniority I feel safe and secure.”

He can also count himself among the workers who are contributing to a significant drop in the Windsor-area’s unemployment rate.

The local jobless rate fell from 9.3 per cent in January to 7.7 per cent last month, according to Statistics Canada. The national jobless rate rose to 7.3 per cent in February as Canada lost 2,300 jobs, while Ontario’s rate edged up to 6.8 from 6.7.

The 1.6 per cent drop in the local jobless rate means Windsor is no longer the unemployment capital of Canada, transferring that title to Montreal, which posted a jobless rate last month of 8.7 per cent.