The national unemployment rate is a mosaic of many pieces. Some areas of the country, for example, demonstrate stability, but other regions are much more variable. Metropolitan areas in general tend to show wider fluctuations, though their unemployment rates are usually lower. These differences have important consequences for the country. As the economy improves, certain regions tend to develop shortages of particular kinds of workers. At the same time, unemployment remains stubbornly high in other areas. Although unemployment rates have fallen in most regions, these declines have been mostly moderate, so unemployment dispersion has risen only slightly. The lowest unemployment rates remain well above those of 1988 and 1989, and the location of the tightest labour markets has shifted from southern Ontario to the West.