A big increase in the number of unemployed in Hastings-Prince Edward and other eastern Ontario counties.
Statistics Canada says 19,300 people in the two local counties, along with Lennox and Addington, Frontenac and Renfrew Counties, were looking for work last month, up by two-thousand from December.
The official local unemployment rate in January was 8.9 per cent, compared to 7.8 the month before. The jobless figure was 6.2 per cent in January of last year.
