September saw a 25 per cent jump in the number of Albertans receiving employment insurance benefits, according to figures released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.

In September, 14,390 more Albertans started receiving EI benefits, a 25 per cent rise from August.

In Calgary, there were 18,830 beneficiaries in September, compared to 3,960 in September 2008.

In September of this year there were 14,920 people receiving benefits in Edmonton, almost 300 per cent more compared to the same month the year before, when there were 3,830 recipients.

Overall, there were 71,900 EI beneficiaries in Alberta in September, 53,700 more than in October 2008, when employment in Alberta was at its peak.

Hector Goudreau, Alberta's employment minister, called the numbers disturbing.

"We're still creating jobs. There's still some job vacancies out there," he said. "There's about 5,000 jobs in our job bank so obviously we still have a lot of work to match people with jobs and to make sure that people have that opportunity across the province."

In Canada, the number of people on EI rose by 54,000 or 7.1 per cent in September.

Alberta joins Ontario and British Columbia as the provinces that recorded the largest increases.