Canadian Payroll Employment Declines in November

On Thursday (1-25-24), Statistics Canada (StatCan) reported that the number of Canadian employees receiving benefits from their employer—measured as “payroll employment” in the Survey of Employment, Payroll, and Hours—declined by 88,300, or 0.5%, in November. This follows a decline of 24,000, or 0.1%, in October.

StatCan notes that the large decline in November can be traced to the elementary and secondary school sector, which showed a 63,000, or 7.5%, decline. That drop was associated with the strike action taking place in Quebec. Excluding the decline in the educational sector, the overall decrease in national payroll employment was 25,300, or 0.1%, in November—similar to October’s results.

Overall job vacancies edged higher in November to 653,000. This follows little change in October and five consecutive monthly declines from May to September. The number of vacancies in November was down by 211,100, or 24.4%, compared with January 2023, and down by 350,200, or 34.9%, from the peak in May 2022.

The job vacancy rate—the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labor demand—was up by 0.1% to 3.7% in November. This marks the first increase since January 2023 but was down from 4.8% that same month.

StatCan points out that there were 1.9 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in November, holding steady from September and October. The unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio in November was up from 1.2 in January 2023, driven by fewer job vacancies—down 211,100, or 24.4%—and an increase in the number of unemployed persons—up 194,400, or 18.6%.