The number of vacancies in the country reached 1,005,700 in May, up slightly from the peak observed during the month of April, according to Statistics Canada data released Thursday.
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The number of vacancies, however, is up 42.5% (+ 300,100) compared to May 2021, noted the federal agency, which specifies that this number “increased steadily until December 2021, before to stabilize somewhat in recent months.
Canada’s job vacancy rate held steady at 5.8% for a second straight month, but was up 4.4% from a year earlier.
“Due to the low unemployment rate, which reached 5.1%, and the high number of vacancies, the unemployment-to-vacancy ratio stood at 1.1 in May, down from 2. .4 recorded a year earlier. A lower unemployment-to-vacancy ratio indicates a tighter labor market and possible labor shortages,” said Statistics Canada.
It was the health care and social assistance sector that saw the largest increase in the number of vacancies (+14.5%) to reach 143,400 in May. The number of job vacancies remained almost unchanged in the other sectors on a month-to-month basis. This is particularly the case for accommodation and food services (161,100), retail trade (99,200), manufacturing (86,800), construction (84,600) and transportation and warehousing (51,100), whose number of vacancies also changed little in May.
According to Statistics Canada, job vacancies reached record levels in Nova Scotia (+22.1% to 24,600) and Manitoba (+15.3% to 32,200).
The unemployment-to-job vacancies ratio also varied from province to province. While there was less than one unemployed person for every job vacancy in Quebec (0.7) and British Columbia (0.8), there were almost three unemployed people for every job vacancy in Newfoundland and -Labrador (3), “an unemployment-to-vacancy ratio higher than that observed in all the other provinces”, according to the federal organization.
Rising wages
Statistics Canada also pointed out that almost all provinces posted wage increases, in more than half of the sectors. Average weekly earnings were up 2.5% from a year earlier, “which represents a lower growth rate than that recorded in April (+3.2%) and March (+4.2 %)”, it was however specified.
By comparison, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 7.7% in May.