The number of employees receiving pay and benefits from their employer—measured as “payroll employment” in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours—decreased by 58,000 (-0.3%) in September, offsetting a cumulative increase of 43,200 (+0.2%) in July and August. On a year-over-year basis, payroll employment was little changed in September, reported Statistics Canada on Thursday.
In September, monthly payroll employment declines were recorded in 11 of the 20 sectors, including educational services (-19,100; -1.3%), manufacturing (-9,600; -0.6%), professional, scientific and technical services (-6,400; -0.5%), real estate and rental and leasing (-5,400; -1.8%) and administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (-3,400; -0.4%). Health care and social assistance (+6,500; +0.3%) as well as arts, entertainment and recreation (+1,900; +0.6%) were the only sectors to record increases in September, said the federal agency.
Meanwhile, job vacancies in Canada increased to 486,000 (+25,500; +5.5%) in September, marking the first month-to-month increase in job vacancies since January 2024. On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies were down 49,700 (-9.3%) in September 2025, it added.
“Year over year, average weekly earnings were up 3.1% to $1,317 in September, following a 2.7% increase in August. In general, growth in average weekly earnings can reflect a range of factors, including changes in wages, composition of employment, hours worked and base-year effects. Month over month, average weekly earnings increased 0.7% in September. In September, average weekly hours worked (33.4 hours) rose 0.3% month over month but were down 0.3% on a year-over-year basis,” said Statistics Canada.
In September, job vacancies in Canada increased to 486,000 (+25,500; +5.5%), marking the first monthly increase since January 2024. On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies were down 49,700 (-9.3%) in September 2025. The job vacancy rate—which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand—was 2.7% in September 2025, up by 0.1 percentage points from August (2.6%) but down 0.3 percentage points from September 2024 (3.0%), according to the report.
“There were 3.3 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in September 2025, down from 3.5 in August. From August to September, the number of unemployed persons was little changed, while the number of job vacancies increased (+26,000; +5.7%, excluding the territories). This was the first monthly decrease in the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio since December 2024. Despite the decrease in September 2025, the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio was up by 0.6 on a year-over-year basis. The unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio excludes the territories for consistency with the comparable Labour Force Survey data,” said the federal agency.
Mario Toneguzzi
Mario Toneguzzi is Managing Editor of Canada’s Entrepreneur. He has more than 40 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist, and editor. He was named in 2021 and 2024 as one of the top business journalists in the world by PR News. He was also named by RETHINK to its global list of Top Retail Experts 2024 and 2025.
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