Nathan Reiter

Lethbridge Herald

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi didn’t pull any punches during a news conference addressing unemployment Friday afternoon.

A new labour force statistics report by the government of Alberta shows the province has the second highest unemployment rate in Canada at 8.4 per cent, only behind Newfoundland and Labrador.

The unemployment rate has increased 0.6 per cent from July to August and a year-to-date change of 1.7 per cent. The Lethbridge-Medicine Hat region reported an unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent for the month of August.

Nenshi, speaking in Calgary, said there was no positive spin to any of the numbers in the report.

“These are really terrible numbers, sometimes we can find little bits around (like) there’s

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