Not an ideal 31 days for employment in southwestern Saskatchewan last month.

The region encompassing Swift Current and Moose Jaw experienced an uptick in unemployment caused by the job market declining.

According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate rose by 0.4 per cent from July of 2017 to 4.7 per cent last month.

Saskatchewan followed suit by seeing their unemployment rate rise by 0.3 per cent to 6.5 per cent in a year-over-year comparison.

Canada's labour force remains amongst the strongest ever as the national unemployment was at 5.9 per cent last month down by a half of a percentage point from the previous year.

Southwestern Saskatchewan has shrunk in population by about 500 people in a year's time. The job market has followed the loss trend with 1,500 fewer jobs than a year ago.