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Job vacancies dropped below one million in July: Statistics Canada

The number of vacant positions across Canada has fallen below one million, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

In July, employers in Canada were actively recruiting for 964,000 vacation positions, down 5.5 per cent (or 56,400 jobs) from June and down 7.0 per cent from May (or 72,700 jobs.)

But the job market is still on fire — compared to July 2021 the number of vacancies is 16.2 per cent higher (or 134,300 jobs.)

The job vacancy rate, which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand (the sum of filled and vacant positions), was 5.4 per cent in July, down by 0.4 percentage points from June and by 0.6 percentage points from its peak of 6.0 per cent in April 2022.

Payroll employment increased 6.1 per cent from March to July 2022, outpacing growth in labour demand (up 5.7 per cent) over the same period and contributing to the decline in job vacancies from a peak of 1.04 million in May. New data developed by Statistics Canada to remove seasonal variations suggest that about half of the decrease in job vacancies from June to July was attributable to seasonal patterns.

The decrease in job vacancies from June to July was accompanied by an increase in unemployment (up 10.5 per cent; or 104,300). However, the labour market remained tighter in July compared with a year earlier. In July 2022, there were 1.1 unemployed persons per job vacancy in Canada, up from 1.0 in June but down from 1.9 in July 2021.