Job Vacancies Shrink as Unemployment Numbers Rise: StatCan

Signage marks the Statistics Canada offices in Ottawa on July 21, 2010. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

Job vacancies in Canada have decreased for the fifth straight quarter, continuing an ongoing trend since a job vacancy record was set in 2022, new data from Statistics Canada show.

As the number of job openings declines, the number of people seeking employment is on the rise.

Job vacancies fell 9 percent in the third quarter of 2023, down to 706,100 job openings from 776,000 vacancies in the previous quarter, according to StatCan numbers. The dip is a significant decrease from the second quarter of 2022, which sat at a “record high” of 990,900 vacant jobs.

Employment rose 0.7 percent for 117,600 new jobs in the third quarter of 2023, the 10th consecutive quarter of  growth, StatCan reported. However, employment has grown “at a slower pace than the population aged 15 years and older since the fourth quarter of 2022” which could create increased competition for existing jobs if the trend continues. The population aged 15 years and older rose by 0.8 percent in the third quarter of 2023.

StatCan numbers also revealed that job opportunities continue to shrink. In the past three months, Canada’s total labour growth rate rose 0.3 percent, far slower than the 1 percent recorded in the same period in 2022.

Unemployment is up by 79,500 additional people, despite a decline in job vacancies, resulting in 1.7 unemployed people for every job vacancy in the third quarter. That is up from 1.4 in the previous quarter, and 1.1 in the third quarter of 2022.

“Despite these continued increases, the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio in the third quarter of 2023 remained below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, which were typically above 2.0,” the report said.

A survey of Canadian businesses found that 40.3 percent expect “at least one labour-related obstacle” during the next three months, down from 47.7 percent in the third quarter. Survey respondents said the most commonly expected obstacle for the fourth quarter was the recruitment of skilled employees.

Hourly Wages

On a year-over-year basis, the average offered hourly wage increased at a quicker rate in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, StatCan also found. The hourly wage came in at $25.60, an increase of 5.8 percent compared with the second quarter wage of $25.10.

Although the average hourly wage has increased, it is not growing at the same level it was in the corresponding 2022 quarter when it shot up 7.3 percent.

“Part of these increases were due to a shift in the relative composition of job vacancies from lower- to higher-offered-wage occupations,” the report said.

Occupations with high annual hourly wage growth in the third quarter of 2023 included general farm workers with an average increase of 10.5 percent to $19 an hour and welders and related machine operators, whose wages jumped 8.7 percent to $28.65.

In contrast, estheticians, electrologists, and related occupations saw a 7.1 percent dip in wages to $17.60 an hour while professional occupations in business management consulting decreased 5.2 percent to $36.55 on a year-over-year basis in the third quarter.

Sales and Services Jobs Drive Decline

Sales and service occupations recorded a 14.3 percent decline, down 34,600 jobs to 206,500. The dip accounted for 29.2 percent of all job vacancies in the third quarter, compared to the 33.5 percent of all open jobs in the same quarter in 2022.

StatCan called it “the largest quarterly decline of any broad occupational group” for the fifth quarter in a row.

Trades told a similar story in the third quarter with the number of job vacancies declining 6.5 percent, down 9,300 jobs to 134,200.

This marks the fifth straight quarterly decline from the record high of 182,300 trades, transport, and equipment operator jobs reached in the second quarter of 2022. On a year-over-year basis, the number of unfilled positions in trades and related occupations fell by 24.1 percent for a total of 42,700 jobs in the third quarter.

Construction trades helpers, labourers, and transport truck drivers recorded the largest decreases in job vacancies at 27.4 percent and 25.1 percent respectively, putting them among the top 10 occupations with the largest annual decreases in vacancies in the third quarter.

“On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies fell in all 10 broad occupational groups in the third quarter of 2023,” StatCan said. “Proportionally, occupations in manufacturing and utilities recorded the largest drop,” decreasing 46.9 percent to 25,900 vacancies.

This was followed by natural resources, agriculture, and related production occupations which saw a 35 percent dip to 15,600 openings, and natural and applied sciences and related occupations which recorded a 34.6 percent drop to 44,500 vacancies.

During the same period, the lowest proportional annual drop in occupations was in the fields of education, law and social, and community and government services, which dipped 3.9 percent to 64,800 vacancies, followed by health occupations which declined 6.1 percent to 89,400. This was the first year-over-year decline in health-related job vacancies since the first quarter of 2015, the earliest quarter for which comparable data are available.