The Yukon's unemployment rate has never been lower.

Since 1992, when the figure was first calculated by surveying Yukoners, the monthly, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate has never been as low as the six per cent it was in March.

Paul Harris of the Yukon Bureau of Statistics confirmed the record this morning.

Up until the last few months, the Yukon has been monthly duking it out with the Maritime provinces for the second-worst rate behind Newfoundland and Labrador.

But with six per cent, the Yukon is now in the top group. The territory boats the third-best unemployment rate in the nation behind Manitoba (5.0) and Alberta (5.0).

The national average is 7.5 per cent. British Columbia is at 7.9 per cent while Ontario sits at 7.1 per cent.

The territory's jobless rate was down .8 per cent from February, when the territory was also below the national average. It was 9.8 per cent lower than it had been 12 months earlier.

According to the figures, there were 14,000 employed Yukoners last month, up 1,000 from March 2003. In February, 13,700 Yukon residents had jobs.

The labour force, which consists of those with jobs, those looking for work and those expecting to go back to work soon, was at 14,900, up by 600 from one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted figures have been altered to erase the traditional increases in employment in the summer so that any month can be compared.

The unchanged figures, called seasonally-unadjusted, also include territorial records.

The seasonally-unadjusted unemployment rate is 6.9 per cent. That's the lowest ever in the month of March, since the records began in 1992.

In the month of March, the rate has gotten as high as 16.7 per cent (1999).

The previous low for March was 10.1 per cent in 1995.

However, the 6.9 per cent is also a record low for any month in the seasonally-adjusted figures, taking the record from the more job-rich summer months, which had been at 7.2 per cent (September 2002).

According to the seasonally-adjusted data, the number of employed Yukoners was at 13,400 last month, which is up by 900 from one year ago.

That number is also a record, with the previous high being 13,300 in March 1996 and 1997.

Helping boost the unemployment rate is the fact the labour force, at 14,500, has been topped in five of the 12 previous years this survey has been conducted and tied in two others.