Canada’s retail industry is once again leading the nation’s employment recovery, adding more jobs in October 2025 than any other sector. According to Statistics Canada, the wholesale and retail trade sector expanded by approximately 41,000 positions, a 1.4 percent increase month-over-month, marking a significant rebound after months of volatility.
While economists were caught off guard by the country’s 67,000 new jobs overall, Suzanne Sears, CEO of Best Retail Careers International Canada and Luxury Careers Canada, says that retail recruiters and insiders saw it coming.
“The results for October astounded everyone in the financial markets, except people in retail and recruiters,” Sears told Retail Insider. “We knew what the groundswell had been since the massive HBC layoff of 8,000-plus people. We saw not a retraction in hiring, but a slow and steady increase in the hiring rate.”
The October jobs report revealed that nearly two-thirds of Canada’s new jobs came from retail and related service industries. “This most recent labour report, 41,000 of the new 67,000 jobs, were retail jobs,” Sears explained. “That’s followed by transport and warehousing at around 30,000, which is closely tied to e-commerce activity.”
Sears said transportation and warehousing data can often serve as an early indicator of retail’s performance. “If you watch those numbers, you can predict reliably what retail hiring will look like two or three months later, because it all lands in the warehouse,” she said. “When warehouses fill up, it means retail orders are strong.”
The correlation highlights the ongoing integration between traditional retail and online shopping infrastructure, where logistics capacity directly mirrors consumer demand.
Retail Hiring No Longer Driven by the Holidays
While October’s surge coincides with the pre-holiday season, Sears emphasized that the gains are not primarily seasonal.
“The old concept of hiring thousands of people for the holidays pretty much vanished when the major department stores did,” she said. “There isn’t a huge surge of temporary bodies in stores anymore. Instead, what we’re seeing is that part-time work has become the job people actually want.”
Sears noted that part-time employment, which accounted for most of October’s job growth, is no longer viewed as a fallback. “These are desirable jobs,” she explained. “They offer flexibility, they pay comparably to full-time work in many cases, and they fit the lifestyle that many Canadians are looking for right now.”
That shift, she said, is also helping retailers fill roles that might otherwise remain vacant amid ongoing labour shortages and changing work expectations.
Local Spending, Global Shifts
Sears attributes part of the hiring momentum to a “stay-at-home, shop-at-home” mindset that’s strengthening local economies. “Every time you add a ten or twenty dollar charge to anything outside the home, whether it’s parking, event tickets, or travel , the multiplier effect catches up,” she said. “People are spending locally instead.”
She pointed to smaller markets as clear examples of this trend. “You have little shops in Niagara-on-the-Lake that always did relatively well, but they’re now exploding,” Sears observed. “They’re turning around and hiring one or two more people each.”
The U.S. added only 44,000 jobs in October, a stark contrast to Canada’s 67,000. “That’s a big story,” Sears added. “A lot of the reason for Canadian job growth is that Canadians are choosing to stay local and spend local.”
The Amazon Effect: Local Advantage Grows
Another key driver, Sears said, is that major online platforms are losing their price advantage. “Prices on Amazon have skyrocketed because tariffs are now built into nearly every product,” she noted. “A small steam cleaner that used to sell for $89 is now $139.”
“Fast and cheap might still be fast, but it’s no longer cheap,” she said. “There’s not a lot of incentive to shop that way anymore when local retailers are offering competitive prices and better service.”
As a result, Canadian retailers are benefiting from renewed consumer loyalty and improved digital capabilities. “They’re getting much better at e-commerce,” she said. “They can’t match the sheer scale of Amazon, but they’re competitive, and that’s a major shift.”
Retailers Regaining Confidence Amid Global Uncertainty
Sears also believes that international trade instability, including renewed U.S. tariffs, initially froze Canadian retailers’ hiring and investment decisions. “When the Trump tariffs came down, everyone was terrified to make a move,” she said. “If there was a decision to hire, lay off, or do nothing, most chose to do nothing.”
Now, she said, that hesitation is fading. “Executives are realizing this could last two or three more years. They’re saying, ‘We either go forward or we die.’”
Improved access to capital and more stable financing conditions are also encouraging retailers to reinvest in staff and operations. “I saw it starting in the summer,” Sears said. “Retailers were asking, ‘If you find anybody, let us know.’ By September they were actively interviewing. So there’s no question in my mind that they’d be hiring in October.”
Sears expects the upward trend to continue through the end of the year, adding that the proportion of Canadians seeking work is dropping as well. “We’ve gone from 7.1 percent to 6.9 percent unemployment,” she said. “There’s a high probability we’ll see that fall even further.”
Post-HBC Retirements Reshape the Retail Workforce
Sears also reflected on the lasting consequences of Hudson’s Bay Company’s mass layoffs earlier this year, noting that many experienced retail professionals simply walked away from the industry.
“People who were on the cusp of retiring just retired flat out,” she said. “Anyone over 50 said, ‘I’ve had enough of retail.’ The core staffing group from about 25 to 55 has been turned off by it.”
The loss of mid-career professionals, she explained, has deepened a generational divide. “Younger people are still studying retail. They’re going to university for it, and they still believe in it,” Sears said. “They see a better way forward, often combining store management with social media skills, but upper management hasn’t fully caught up yet.”
Sears said the industry now faces a critical question: how to restore trust among workers burned by corporate closures and instability. “There’s a bad taste,” she said. “People say, ‘I’ll do anything but not retail.’ If COVID didn’t burn them, HBC did. Many of them lost their benefits, and that left a scar.”
Balancing Optimism with Caution
Even with strong October numbers, Sears acknowledged that some may question whether this growth is sustainable. “That’s the first thing people will say,” she noted. “Yes, it’s good news, but is it sustainable?”
Retail remains Canada’s largest employer, representing about 15 percent of the national workforce. “When retail’s leading, it has a trickle-down effect that’s enormous,” Sears said. “It won’t offset the loss of factories or lumber mills, but it can stabilize communities.”
That stabilization, she argued, is already visible in provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia. “Retail is leading hiring even in Ontario, which has been beaten up badly,” she said. “That’s impressive.”
