Job vacancies hit record highs again in Q1
The number of job vacancies across the country – and in the construction sector – continue to soar.
Statistics Canada’s latest look at the employment market shows employers had nearly 960,000 jobs opening at the end of the first quarter of this year. That record total is 2.7% (+24,900) higher than the previous peak in the fourth quarter of last year, and up 72.3% (+401,900) from the first quarter of 2020.
Canada’s job vacancy rate – which measures the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand (filled and vacant positions) – was 5.6% in the first quarter. The job vacancy rate has been trending upward since the first quarter of 2016.
Reported vacancies were highest in the health-care and social assistance sector at nearly 137,000. High labour demand in the sector has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, Statistics Canada says.
Construction employers, meanwhile, were looking to fill an unprecedented 81,500 jobs at the end of the first quarter of this year. That figure is a jump of more than 7% (+5,400) from the fourth quarter of 2021 and more than double the number (38,800) in the first quarter of 2020.
Compared with the first quarter of 2020, demand grew most for construction trades helpers and labourers (+97%; +8,800) and carpenters (+149.1%; +6,600). Total labour demand in the sector was 9.3% (+100,900) higher than in the first quarter of 2020, as payroll employment rose 5.5% (+58,100) since that time.
Job vacancies also spiked in the manufacturing and retail trade sectors.
The number of job vacancies peaked at 87,400 in the manufacturing sector, up 5.3% (+4,400) from the record high of the fourth quarter of 2021 and up 93.6% (+42,300) from the first quarter of 2020. Across all subsectors, the largest increases were in food manufacturing (+81.8%; +6,800) and fabricated metal product manufacturing (+115.7%; +6,100).
Retail employers, meanwhile, had nearly, 115,000 open positions at quarter’s end, while the 68,8000 vacancies in the professional, scientific and technical services sector was almost unchanged from the record high at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.
Troubling for those employers looking to fill positions is that the pool of unemployed workers across the country continues to shrink. Statistics Canada reports that the unemployment to job vacancy ratio was 1.3 in the first quarter. That figure was down from 2.2 in the same quarter of 2020, and down from a high of 3.9 in the first quarter of 2016.
The latest Labour Force Survey data from Statistics Canada shows a record low national unemployment rate of 5.1% in May.
Due in part to a shrinking pool of unemployed workers, employers faced significant hiring challenges during the first quarter of this year, when there were 33.6 newly hired employees for every 100 vacancies.
In comparison, the ratio of new hires to vacancies was 47.8 in the first quarter of 2021 and 81.1 in the first quarter of 2016.
Employers are increasingly offering higher wages as a way of competing for tightening supplies of workers. Statistics Canada has found that offered wages were up 2.5% on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter. By comparison, the Consumer Price Index increased by 5.8% over the same period, and average hourly wages of all employees rose 3.0%.
Those sectors with notably high increases in offered wages from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022 included wholesale trade (+9.4% to $26.10); transportation and warehousing (+8.0% to $24.25); construction (+6.6% to $27.50); and manufacturing (+6.6% to $23.45).
Those with smaller changes in offered wages included health care and social assistance (+2.4% to $25.60); utilities (+1.3% to $37.55); and educational services (-3.5% to $27.30).
Statistics Canada has also looked into the role played by wage and non-wage conditions, including employer-sponsored pension plans, medical insurance and paid leave entitlements, in meeting job seekers’ expectations.
In February and March 2022, the Labour Force Survey collected information on reservation wages, or the minimum hourly wage at which job seekers are willing to accept a position. Any mismatches between the expectations of workers and the offered wages associated with vacancies could contribute to higher levels of job vacancies.
Sectors where average offered wages fell short of average reservation wages in the first quarter included retail trade (average offered wage was 22.4% lower than the average reservation wage); accommodation and food services (-15.8%) and construction (-7.0%).
On a seasonally adjusted basis, job vacancies increased most in Newfoundland and Labrador (+12.6% to 8,500), New Brunswick (+8.7% to 16,300), Manitoba (+5.1% to 27,700) and Ontario (+3.1% to 359,000).
Compared with the first quarter of 2020, the largest proportional increases on a provincial level in Alberta (+80.8% to 95,200) and Ontario (+80.2% to 359,000).