Job vacancies fell by 31,900 (-5.5%) to 546,100 in the third quarter, marking the ninth consecutive quarterly decline. However, the drop in the third quarter was smaller compared with the decline recorded in the second quarter of 2024 (-63,200; -9.9%), said Statistics Canada in a report released on Monday.
“Job vacancies in sales and service occupations declined for the eighth consecutive quarter, falling by 12,500 (-7.4%) to 155,300 in the third quarter. Despite the decline, sales and service occupations continued to represent the largest share of vacancies among all 10 broad occupational groups, accounting for nearly 3 in 10 (28.4%) vacancies in the third quarter,” said the report.
“Year over year, job vacancies in sales and service occupations declined by 71,400 (-29.8%) in the third quarter. Within this occupational group, food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related support occupations (-17,300 to 30,100), retail salespersons and visual merchandisers (-10,100 to 20,000), cooks (-6,000 to 13,800), and light duty cleaners (-5,100 to 9,000) saw the largest year-over-year drops in vacancies in the third quarter (not seasonally adjusted).”
In the third quarter, job vacancies nationally declined for both permanent (-27,800;Â -5.9%) and temporary (-4,100;Â -4.0%) positions, and among both full-time (-19,300;Â -4.5%) and part-time (-12,600;Â -8.5%) positions, said the federal agency.
Meanwhile, total labour demand (the sum of filled and vacant positions) was little changed for the fourth consecutive quarter. On a year-over-year basis, total labour demand was down by 0.1% in the third quarter. This follows year-over-year growth of 0.8% in the third quarter of 2023, and 6.3% in the third quarter of 2022, it said.
“The job vacancy rate—which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand—decreased 0.1 percentage points to 3.1% in the third quarter of 2024, marking the ninth consecutive quarterly decline from a record high of 5.6% in the second quarter of 2022,” explained StatsCan.
“The unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio—the number of unemployed persons per job vacancy—continued a steady increase to 2.6 in the third quarter of 2024, up from 2.4 in the second quarter, and from 2.0 in the first quarter. The increase in the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio from the third quarter of 2022 reflected both a decrease in job vacancies (-410,500; -43.0%) and an increase in the number of unemployed persons (+374,200; +35.5%, according to the Labour Force Survey). The unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio excludes the territories for consistency with the available Labour Force Survey data.”
On a year-over-year basis, the average offered hourly wage grew at a faster pace in the third quarter (+7.6% to $27.55) compared with the second quarter (+6.8% to $26.80) and the first quarter (+7.3% to $27.25). In comparison, year-over-year average hourly wages of all employees (from the Labour Force Survey) grew 5.0% in the third quarter (data used in this section are not seasonally adjusted), added Statistics Canada.
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