‘Sustained strong growth in new opportunities suggest employer hiring appetite has more gas in the tank’
Job postings in the country are rising past pre-pandemic levels.
As of June 4, total job postings on Indeed Canada were up 23 per cent from their Feb. 1, 2020 levels, after adjusting for seasonal trends. They are also up four percentage points since the start of May 2021.
Meanwhile, new job postings were up 24 per cent from February 2020.
“Sustained strong growth in new opportunities suggest employer hiring appetite has more gas in the tank, which should be an important boost in helping the elevated number of jobless Canadians find new work,” says Brendon Bernard, senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
Canada’s employment numbers fell by 68,000 (0.4 per cent) to 18,559,200 in May, according to Statistics Canada.
And a “moderate hiring pace” is expected of Canadian employers over the next three months, according to a previous report.
Variations across regions
Among provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador (up 64 percentage points), Prince Edward Island (up 41 percentage points), Saskatchewan (up 35 percentage points), New Brunswick (up 32 percentage points), Nova Scotia (up 31 percentage points), Quebec (up 30 percentage points) and Alberta (up 24 percentage points) all exceed the national growth in terms of job postings compared with Feb. 1, 2020.
Meanwhile, British Columbia (up 18 percentage points), Ontario (up 16 percentage points) and Manitoba (up 12 percentage points) recorded increases below the national average.
Compared with data from May 1, 2021, Saskatchewan (up 10 percentage points), Alberta (up seven percentage points), P.E.I. (up seven percentage points), New Brunswick (up five percentage points) and B.C. (up five percentage points) recorded increases in job posting above the up four percentage points tally for the country.
Ontario (up 3 percentage points) and Quebec (up 1 percentage point) both recorded increases below the national average since May 1, while job posting in Newfoundland and Labrador (-5 percentage points), Manitoba (-4 percentage points) and Nova Scotia (-1 percentage point) all recorded decreases in the same period.
Sectoral differences
Among sectors, loading and stocking (up 68 percentage points), software development (60 percentage points), construction (up 55 percentage points), nursing (up 54 percentage points) and driving (up 24 percentage points) recorded above-the-national-average job posting increases since Feb. 1, 2020.
Retail (up 21 percentage points), accounting, management (both up 19 percentage points) and food preparation and service (up 12 percentage points) recorded increases below the national average, while hospitality and tourism (down 17 percentage points), sports (down 23 percentage points) and aviation (down 54 percentage points) recorded drops in job postings in the same period.
Since May 1, food preparation and service (up 27 percentage points), sports (up 14 percentage points), hospitality and tourism, software development (both up eight percentage points), accounting (up five percentage points) retail, aviation (both up four percentage points) and loading and stocking (up one percentage point) recorded increases.
Meanwhile, there was no change in job postings in the sectors of driving and management, and there were drops in numbers in nursing (down eight percentage points) and construction (down four percentage points).
Nearly seven in 10 (69 per cent) of employers globally are struggling to find workers to hire for specific positions, marking a 15-year high, according to the ManpowerGroup.
