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The unemployment rate in Alberta ticked slightly higher in April, rising a tenth of a point to 7.2 per cent, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

While employment dropped by 20,800 from March, the jobless rate moved only slightly, as the labour force — the number of people working or looking for work — shrank by 18,800.

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According to the federal agency, employment in the province is down 37,000 since March 2015, while the unemployment raise has climbed by 1.6 points.

About 40 per cent of the monthly job losses — 8,400 — came from the natural resources sector. Since April 2015, that sector has lost more than 22,000 jobs.

Other sectors seeing sizeable monthly decreases were wholesale and retail trade (6,800) and finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing (5,100).

Nationally, the overall Canadian labour market was stuck in neutral last month as a solid employment gain in the services sector was wiped out by job losses in the goods-producing industry, especially manufacturing.

The national unemployment rate for April remained unchanged at 7.1 per cent. Overall, the country lost 2,100 jobs nationally — a number that Statistics Canada considers to be close to zero.

The number of employee positions in Canada increased in April by 22,800, while self-employed jobs fell by 24,900.

Overall Canadian employment last month was up 0.8 per cent compared to 12 months earlier, the report said.

That flat national job number matched the projection of a consensus of economists, who had also predicted the jobless rate to creep up to 7.2 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters.

With files from the Canadian Press