Employment across the country dipped in June, as the number of employees receiving pay and benefits from their employers dropped by 47,300, or -0.3% for the month.

The decline followed five consecutive monthly increases from January to May, with a cumulative gain of 147,600 (+0.8%) over this period. On a year-over-year basis, payroll employment was up 110,400 (+0.6%) in June.

Eleven of the 20 sectors studied by Statistics Canada reported monthly payroll employment decreases. These were led by retail trade (-15,100; -0.8%), manufacturing (-10,600; -0.7%) and construction (-7,700; -0.7%). Mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction (+2,500; +1.2%) was the lone sector to record a monthly increase in June. The other sectors were little changed.

The drop in construction employment follows little change in May and an increase in April (+2,300; +0.2%). The monthly decline in June followed an upward trend that began in January 2024, resulting in an overall gain of 5,900 (+0.5%) from January to June.

June’s decline was spread across eight of the 10 industries in the sector, led by other specialty trade contractors (-2,600; -1.9%), utility system construction (-1,400; -1.9%) and residential building construction (-1,100; -0.6%), which was also down by 2,300 (-1.3%) from its peak recorded in December 2023.

Building equipment contractors (+500; +0.1%) was the sole industry in this sector to record a monthly increase in June 2024.

Meanwhile, overall job vacancies were little changed in June, at 554,000. On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies were down by 190,500 (-25.6%).