Payroll employees increasing as job vacancies drop: Statistics Canada

The number of employees receiving pay and benefits from their employer increased by 47,700 (+0.3%) in June. Meanwhile, job vacancies remained on a downward trend, edging down by 8,900 (-1.2%) to 753,400 in June, says a report released Thursday by Statistics Canada.

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The federal agency said the largest monthly increase in payroll employment was recorded in health care and social assistance (+25,100; +1.1%), followed by construction (+4,000; +0.3%), manufacturing (+3,500; +0.2%), utilities (+1,300; +1.0%) and professional, scientific and technical services (+1,200; +0.1%).

These gains were partially mitigated by fewer payroll employees in administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (-6,800; -0.8%), information and cultural industries (-2,900; -0.8%), retail trade (-2,000; -0.1%) and other services (except public administration) (-800; -0.1%). The remaining 11 sectors recorded little change in June, it said.

“Growth in overall payroll employment has remained moderate in recent months. Cumulative growth in overall payroll employment was 168,300 (+0.9%) from February to June, compared with 279,700 (+1.6%) from September 2022 to January 2023,” added StatsCan.

The report said average weekly earnings in June ($1,204) were little changed from the level observed in May ($1,200). In comparison, average weekly earnings increased 0.4% from April to May. In June, average weekly earnings were up in arts, entertainment and recreation (+6.0% to $738), manufacturing (+1.9% to $1,337) and accommodation and food services (+1.7% to $488).

“On a year-over-year basis, average weekly earnings were up 3.6% in June. In general, growth in average weekly earnings can reflect a range of factors, including changes in wages, composition of employment and hours worked. In June, average weekly hours worked were down 0.6% (to 33.2 hours) year over year and were unchanged compared with the previous month,” explained Statistics Canada.

The report said job vacancies remained on a downward trend in June, edging down (-1.2%) to 753,400 from 762,300 in May. This brings the net decrease in the number of vacancies to 108,500 (-12.6%) since January and to 249,900 (-24.9%) since the record high of just over 1 million (1,003,200) vacancies reached in May 2022. Job vacancies in June 2023 were at their lowest level since May 2021 (673,400).

“The largest monthly declines in vacancies in June 2023 were observed in finance and insurance (-8,800; -30.2%), accommodation and food services (-7,600; -7.5%) and construction (-6,900; -10.0%). These decreases were mitigated by more vacancies in health care and social assistance (+12,400; +9.2%), which rebounded following a fall in May,” it said.

“On a year-over-year basis in June, unfilled positions were down in five of the six largest contributors to job vacancies, namely accommodation and food services (-58,400; -38.7%), professional, scientific and technical services (-26,600; -37.2%), manufacturing (-25,700; -30.5%), retail trade (-23,000; -21.4%) and construction (-20,200; -24.5%). However, unfilled positions remained virtually unchanged from one year earlier in health care and social assistance.

“Excluding the health care and social assistance sector, there were 606,300 job vacancies in June, compared with 627,600 in May and 837,300 in June 2022.

“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 4.2% in June 2023, virtually unchanged compared with May (4.3%) but down from 4.8% in January. The job vacancy rate has trended down since peaking at 5.7% in March, April and May 2022.”

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)