Canadian Payroll Employment and Job Vacancies Data for March

On Thursday, Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that the number of employees receiving pay and benefits—measured as “payroll employment” in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls, and Hours—increased 0.3% in March, or 51,400 positions, following an increase of 0.1%, or 14,600, in February. Year-over-year, payroll employment was up 1.3% in March, or 232,100, positions.

In March, job vacancies in Canada declined by 6.2%, or 40,600, to 610,700 open positions. This marks the largest month-over-month decline since September 2023. Job vacancies had previously followed a steady downward trend from May 2022 to September 2023. Compared with March 2023, total job vacancies were down 24.0%, or 192,800.

The number of job vacancies in construction declined 19.1%, or 11,000, to 46,700—the lowest level since December 2020 when it was 43,300. Since March 2023, the number of vacancies in the construction sector has declined 32.6%, or 22,600. The job vacancy rate in the construction sector was 3.8%, down 0.9 percentage point from February (4.7%) and down 1.8% from a year earlier (5.6%).