Canadian Employment Up for Fifth Consecutive Month in May

On Thursday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that the number of Canadian employees receiving pay and benefits from their employer—measured as “payroll employment” in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours—increased by 41,000, or 0.2%, in May. This was the fifth consecutive monthly increase, with a cumulative gain of 148,900, or 0.8%, from January to May.

In May, monthly payroll employment increases were recorded in 9 out of 20 sectors, led by health care and social assistance (up 0.6%, or 13,800 positions) and educational services (up 0.6%, or 8,800 positions). These gains were partially offset by decreases in public administration (down 0.3%, or 4,000 positions) and administrative and support, waste management, and remediation services (down 0.3%, or 2,400 positions).

Job vacancies were little changed at 559,700, following three consecutive monthly declines totaling 99,700. Compared with May 2023, job vacancies were down 28.0%, or 217,100 positions.

In May, total labor demand—the sum of filled and unfilled positions—decreased 0.2%, or 31,200 positions, from April and by 0.3%, or 54,600 positions, when compared with the previous year.

The job vacancy rate—the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labor demand—decreased 0.1 percentage points to 3.1% and was 1.3 percentage points lower than in May 2023, when it was at 4.4%. The job vacancy rate was just below the average job vacancy rate of 3.2% from March 2019 to March 2020 before the pandemic.

In May, there were 2.5 unemployed persons for every job vacancy, compared with a ratio of 2.4 in April.