Ottawa-Gatineau's jobless rate edged up again in April, as employment fell by roughly 1,300 jobs from the previous month.

The local unemployment rate rose three percentage points to 4.9 per cent, following the first increase in joblessness in nine months in March, although unemployment is still lower than 12 months earlier when the jobless rate was 5.4 per cent.

Layoffs at the Dell and Sitel call centres likely contributed to the overall decrease in employment, as the main reason for the month-over-month decline was a 1,600-job loss in high-tech employment, which fell to 60,900 in April.

"(High-tech employment)'s been weakening lately," says Statistics Canada analyst Vincent Ferrao. "It was growing but it looks like it's losing employment, so we're not far from the level of 12 months ago."

Mr. Ferrao notes that high-tech employment is still up compared to a year earlier, when there were 57,900 people employed in the industry.

There was little upward pressure in the month, as any growth was fairly soft among the various industries in Ottawa-Gatineau. Mr. Ferrao says public administration employment was up slightly to 146,200 from 143,600, and there were also small gains in educational services and health care and social assistance, but these increases were not enough to offset the plunge in high-tech employment from a month earlier.

Nonetheless, local unemployment remains relatively low and is considerably below Ontario's average of 6.3 per cent, says Mr. Ferrao. He notes that the jobless rate for Ottawa alone is the second-lowest in the province after Kitchener which had an April rate of 4.8 per cent, and that Ottawa-Gatineau has added 22,000 jobs since April 2007.

However, he adds, "This year, we're not seeing growth; it's been sort of flat in the first four months of the year."

On a year-over-year basis, employment growth has been strongest in the Ottawa-Gatineau's public administration job machine, which has added roughly 22,000 jobs over the 12 months to 146,000. There has also been some contribution from the educational services and the professional, scientific and technical services categories, both of which added 10,000 jobs, to 54,000 and 67,000 respectively.

On a national basis, unemployment also increased to 6.1 per cent from six per cent, although employment grew by approximately 19,000 jobs.