Some professionals in the Thompson-Okanagan are worried about young workers leaving the region.

A new report by the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C. says the southern Interior lost 3,200 workers last year aged 19 to 24.

CPABC partner Karen Christiansen says that age group made up more than 40 per cent of job losses.

And that’s not all.

“Despite all of the overall job losses in the Thompson-Okanagan area, the region’s unemployment rate fell by one percentage point, down to about 6.1 per cent. But our indicators suggest that this was a result of the loss of 7,700 workers in the region’s labour force,” Christiansen says.

“Given the recruiting challenges that we appear to be experiencing in the Thompson-Okanagan, it is concerning to see the departure of 3,200 young workers when that is the future. It’s important for our economic engine, and the service-oriented and lower-level jobs are normally filled by those young workers.”

She says anecdotally, many of those young workers appear to be leaving for larger urban centres.

Christiansen says as of last month however, the region’s job sector has shown some improvement with a small gain in overall positions.