A huge increase in the unemployment rate in the Quinte area and other parts of Eastern Ontario.
Statistics Canada says the rate in Hastings, Prince Edward, Lennox and Addington, Frontenac and Renfrew counties was 8.4 per cent last month, compared to 6.8 per cent in February.
Just over 19-thousand unemployed people were looking for jobs in March, compared to 15,700 the month before.
Statscan says 212-thousand people were working in the five counties, down by almost three-and-a-half-thousand from February.
