The provincial government faced heavy criticism over its jobs strategy on Friday as Statistics Canada released data showing that B.C. lost thousands of jobs last month and recorded one of the slowest job growth rates in the country.The federal agency said Ontario and B.C. were responsible for almost all the employment reversal in January, with losses of 31,200 and 15,900 respectively.

The jobs shed in B.C. were mostly part-time positions and concentrated in construction, health care and social assistance.

Compared to last January, employment was up slightly by 0.1 per cent, but the data showed that's the third-slowest year-over-year job growth in the country after Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Alberta, for example, was up 1.9 per cent, while Saskatchewan was up 4.1 per cent.

Provincial NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston blasted the government over Friday's numbers, saying they conclusively show the B.C. Liberal jobs plan — and its taxpayer-funded promotional advertising campaign — has been a failure.

"They should be taking ownership for what is a huge policy failure and also a pretty deceptive set of advertisements that were paid for by the public," said Ralston, referring to a $15-million advertising campaign that has been touting B.C.'s accomplishments on job creation.

"They talk about British Columbia being No. 1 in job creation. We're second last among Canadian provinces," he said.

Ralston added that when looking at private-sector job figures, the province has actually lost jobs since September 2011, when Premier Christy Clark launched the B.C. Jobs Plan.

"The private-sector job losses over the life of the plan so far has been 37,000," he said. "The program is a complete failure."

Friday's numbers come as a blow to Clark, who has been basing the bulk of her re-election strategy on the jobs plan, and on positioning her government as better stewards of the economy then the NDP.

The new figures open the door for Ralston to argue the premier took a wrong tack.

"Some of the long-term things that we have talked about that would be incremental would be skills training and all those kind of programs," he said. "Those are not things where you turn the ship around overnight, but that's the sort of long-term commitment to building a real jobs strategy that you need in British Columbia.

"I think maybe they believed their own rhetoric. I'm not sure why. But this was a political exercise and a public relations exercise, and the real economy hasn't supported what they've said."

Jason Gilmore, senior analyst with Statistics Canada, said most of January's employment decline was driven by women age 25 and older, and could point to job cuts in sectors where there are a large number of female employees, such as caregiving and social assistance.

Despite the losses, Statistics Canada says the unemployment rate edged down in B.C. to 6.3 per cent from 6.4 per cent in December. In Vancouver, the unemployment rate is at 6.5 per cent, down from 6.7 per cent last month.

Labour minister Pat Bell insisted Friday that despite B.C. leading with Ontario in job losses across the country, and reporting one of the slowest year over year job growths, the province's economy remains stable.