Job vacancies remained on a downward trend in April, edging down to 790,900, from 804,800 in March. This brings the net decrease in the number of vacancies to 72,700 (-8.4 per cent) since January, and to 212,300 (-21.2 per cent) since the all-time high of 1,003,200 vacancies reached in May 2022, reported Statistics Canada on Thursday.
Alexander Suhorucov
The federal agency said monthly declines in vacancies in April were observed in two provinces. Ontario (-19,300; -6.7 per cent) recorded the largest decline, followed by Prince Edward Island (-900; -23.8 per cent).
It said declining job vacancies in construction (-9,000; -12.9 per cent), professional, scientific, and technical services (-7,700; -15.2 per cent), manufacturing (-6,700; -11.1 per cent) and retail trade (-5,500; -5.9 per cent) were partially offset by increases in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (+7,200; +16.4 per cent).
“The job vacancy rate—which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand (the sum of filled and vacant positions) — was 4.4 per cent in April, compared with 4.5 per cent in March. The job vacancy rate has followed a downward trend after recording a peak of 5.7 per cent in March, April and May 2022. The job vacancy rate in April 2023 was the lowest recorded since May 2021 (4.2 per cent),” added StatsCan.
The federal agency said the number of employees receiving pay or benefits from their employer—measured as “payroll employees” in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours—decreased by 25,100 (-0.1 per cent) in April, excluding federal government public administration.
“The federal government public administration recorded a decline of 115,200 (-30.5 per cent), which was associated with the strike action in April. Most of this decline is expected to be temporary. In accordance with the “payroll employee” concept of the survey, persons who are on strike for the entire survey reference week are excluded from the payroll employment count for the month. Including the decline in this subsector, the overall decrease in national payroll employment was 140,300 (-0.8 per cent) in April,” it said.
“In addition to the decline in public administration (-108,200; -8.6 per cent), five other sectors recorded monthly payroll employment declines, including retail trade (-9,200; -0.5 per cent), accommodation and food services (-7,000; -0.5 per cent) and other services (except public administration) (-4,800; -0.9 per cent). These declines were partially offset by gains in construction (+3,700; +0.3 per cent) and health care and social assistance (+2,100; +0.1 per cent).
“Growth in payroll employment has moderated since the beginning of 2023. The decline in April followed cumulative increases of 48,900 (+0.3 per cent) in February and March. In comparison, payroll employment in the previous five-month period generally trended upwards, with cumulative gains of 279,700 (+1.6 per cent) from September 2022 to January 2023.”
Mario Toneguzzi
(Mario Toneguzzi is Managing Editor of Canada’s Podcast. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He was named in 2021 as one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the World by PR News – the only Canadian to make the list)
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