Job vacancies decreased by 55,500 (-6.6%) to 780,200 in the second quarter, continuing a steady downward trend seen over the past year, reported Statistics Canada.
Christina Morillo
“On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies in the second quarter declined by 210,700 (-21.3%) from the record high of 990,900 unfilled positions reached in the second quarter of 2022. Job vacancies decreased more for permanent positions (-193,200; -23.1%) than for temporary positions (-17,500; -11.4%). Over the same period, they also fell more for full-time positions (-163,500; -21.9%) than for part-time positions (-47,200; -19.4%),” said the federal agency.
“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)—fell by 0.3 percentage points to 4.4% in the second quarter of 2023. This was the fourth consecutive quarterly decline and the lowest rate since the second quarter of 2021 (4.3%). The decrease in the job vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2023 reflected lower job vacancies (-55,500; -6.6%) combined with more payroll employees (+66,300; +0.4%).”
While job vacancies decreased in the second quarter, the number of unemployed persons (as estimated in the Labour Force Survey) increased by 44,300, following three quarters of little change, reported the federal agency.
“As a result, there were 1.4 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in Canada in the second quarter, up from 1.3 in the previous quarter and from 1.1 in the second quarter of 2022. These increases indicate that labour market tightness eased in the second quarter of 2023, which may reduce upward pressure on growth in offered wages. Nevertheless, the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio in the second quarter remained below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, which were typically above 2.0,” it said.
“The average offered hourly wage grew 4.4% to $25.10 year over year in the second quarter, a slowdown from the first quarter (+5.0%) and the fourth quarter of 2022 (+8.5%). In comparison, year over year, average hourly wages of all employees (estimated from the Labour Force Survey) grew 4.8% in the second quarter of 2023 and 5.1% in the first quarter (data used in this section are not seasonally adjusted).
“Part of these wage increases were due to a shift in the relative composition of job vacancies from occupations offering lower wages to those offering higher wages. Using a method that holds the composition of job vacancies by occupation at the average of the second quarter of 2022, offered hourly wages grew 3.0% year over year in the second quarter of 2023, down from 3.5% in the previous quarter and from 5.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
“Occupations with high annual growth of their average offered hourly wage in the second quarter of 2023 included nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates (+8.6% to $22.80) and public works and maintenance labourers (+8.0% to $23.05).
“In contrast, nursing co-ordinators and supervisors (-4.3% to $32.40) and residential and commercial installers and servicers (-4.2% to $22.90) saw their offered hourly wages drop in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis.”
StatsCan said job vacancies decreased in six provinces and were virtually unchanged in the other four in the second quarter of 2023. The largest quarter-over-quarter declines were in Ontario (-27,900 to 271,200), Quebec (-16,400 to 195,700) and Alberta (-6,500 to 86,700). Year over year, job vacancies decreased in eight provinces and were little changed in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.
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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