Canadian Job Vacancies Decline in Q1

On Tuesday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that job vacancies declined 3.6%, or 24,300, to 648,600 in Q1. This marks the seventh consecutive quarterly decline from the record high of 983,600 reached in 2022Q2.

Payroll employment held steady in Q1. Total labor demand—the sum of filled and vacant positions—inched 0.1% lower from 2023Q4 and was virtually unchanged from 2023Q1. The job vacancy rate—the number of vacant positions as portion of total labor demand—declined 0.2 percentage points to 3.6% in Q1, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline. StatCan notes that the job vacancy rate in Q1 was the lowest since 2020Q1.

According to data from the Labor Force Survey, there were 2.0 unemployed persons for every vacancy in Q1. The overall unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio has trended up since 2022Q3. This steady increase was driven both by a decrease in job vacancies—down 32.3%, or 309,400—and by an increase in the number of unemployed persons, which increased 20.3%.