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The number of unemployed people in Saskatchewan decreased in October, but that’s partly because fewer people were looking for work.

“In Stats Canada’s world, you can be unemployed as long as you’re looking for work,” said statistician Doug Elliott, publisher of Sask Trends Monitor.

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“What we’ve seen in the last three or four months is people being discouraged from the lack of job opportunities … and just not looking anymore, which means the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed people go down, but not because they’re finding work — it’s because they’ve quit looking.”

Saskatchewan has its lowest labour force participation rate since 2005.

In October, according to Statistics Canada, 9,600 fewer people were looking for work compared with the year before.

The province’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 5.9 per cent; it was seven per cent last October.

“We continue to see the impact of low resource prices on our labour market,” Economy Minister Steven Bonk stated in a news release.