Economic Development Regina.

Despite a recent downturn in the construction industry, Regina is still one of Canada’s fastest growing urban centres.

In Economic Development Regina’s report card issued on the city Tuesday, numbers indicated almost six-thousand people moved to the queen city in 2018, that brings Regina’s population to just over 257,000.

E.D.R Vice President David Froh, said Regina is in fact the second fastest growing city in Canada.

“We have people moving here and we have people staying here, which means there’s opportunity in this city,” said Froh. “I think moving forward, whenever you have an economic lull you need to re-position for the future, and I think the we’ve done that and continue to do that in certain areas like the food economy, agriculture and manufacturing,” Froh continued.

Froh said those sectors are partially responsible for the rise in employment and drop in unemployment seen in Regina recently.

The unemployment rate in July of this year dropped 17 percent from July 2018, while employment itself rose nearly two percent.

When it comes to the challenges in the construction industry, E.D.R’s report card showed a year-over-year drop in housing starts of 63 percent and a decrease of 29 percent in overall building permits between July 2019 and July 2018.

Jobs are being created elsewhere as mentioned by Froh, in areas like Manufacturing, the food and hospitality industry and agriculture.

Froh said that also speaks to the cultural diversity we now see in the queen city.

“Diversity in our community is important for lots of reasons, new people here bring new ideas and contacts in markets that we sell to, but it also makes our community just a better place to live and be in, all you got to do is look in some of our parks and see things like people playing cricket, that’s something you did not see even ten years ago,” said Froh.