Canada entered the final stretch of 2025 with another month of solid overall job growth, yet the country’s retail sector continued to tread water. Statistics Canada’s November Labour Force Survey reports a headline gain of 54,000 jobs nationally and a notable drop in the unemployment rate to 6.5 percent. But beneath those encouraging numbers, wholesale and retail trade recorded the sharpest decline of any major industry, shedding about 34,000 positions and reversing most of October’s gains.
The contrast captures a year defined less by contraction than by stagnation, according to longtime retail recruiter Suzanne Sears, CEO of Best Retail Careers International Canada and Luxury Careers Canada. As she reviewed the numbers, she saw a sector that has not collapsed but also has not made meaningful forward progress.
“When it comes to Ontario, a year has gone by and it is flat,” she said. “The bottom line is nothing happened in 2025. Nothing in growth.”
Her comments offer one of the clearest interpretations of Canadian retail employment 2025 at a time when the data itself has produced as many contradictions as conclusions.
Across the broader economy, November marked the third consecutive month of employment gains. Total employment is now roughly 300,000 people higher than in November 2024, and the national employment rate edged up to 60.9 percent. Youth aged 15 to 24 accounted for nearly all the monthly job growth, adding around 50,000 positions.
The gains were concentrated in health care and social assistance, accommodation and food services, and natural resources. Retail moved in the opposite direction, pulling back sharply after an unusually strong October.
Still, Sears noted that this volatility is typical heading into the holiday season. “Hard to know about November statistics for retail because it is inconsistent with the holiday that generates sales,” she said. “The part time thing, while interesting, is not actually very important in itself.”
Seasonally adjusted data show that retail remains modestly ahead of where it stood a year ago, with employment in wholesale and retail trade sitting roughly 44,000 people higher than November 2024. The issue is not collapse, Sears said, but the absence of underlying momentum.
Ontario and Quebec Lose Retail Jobs While Other Provinces Grow
The November decline in retail jobs was concentrated in Ontario, which logged a drop of about 20,000 positions, and Quebec, which lost roughly 9,700. Those losses overshadowed job growth elsewhere in the country, including Alberta’s 29,000-job gain, one of the strongest provincial increases of the year.
Participation rates help explain some of the provincial differences. Sears pointed out that Ontario’s participation rate sits around 65 percent, below Saskatchewan at 67 percent and Manitoba at about 66 percent, but above Alberta at roughly 64 percent. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the participation rate is closer to 57 percent.
“The participation rate is always interesting,” she said. “Sometimes people read it as giving up, but it can also be a reflection of an older population or a lack of population growth. In Newfoundland, only slightly more than half the people actually work. That tells you a lot.”
For Sears, the most striking figure is that Canada has about 26,000 fewer people in the labour force than a year ago. “We have a shrinking labour market,” she said. “Are people leaving the country, going back to school, aging out of the workforce? It is interesting, and it matters for retailers.”
The Layoff Myth and Why Part Time Work Isn’t the Story
Despite widespread public perception, Sears stressed that layoffs have not meaningfully increased in 2025. “The layoff rate is unchanged for the whole 12 months,” she said. “Nobody actually has laid off enough to budge that number.”
Statistics Canada puts November’s layoff rate at 0.7 percent, slightly below the 0.8 percent recorded a year earlier. Most job losses classified in November were terminations rather than temporary layoffs with a chance of recall.
“Layoffs are not really happening,” Sears said. “They are getting a lot of attention, but the numbers are basically unchanged.”
Part time employment also remains more stable than many assume. Sears noted that only 17 to 18 percent of part time workers say they want full time hours but cannot get them. “So roughly 80 percent of the people who are working part time are doing so by choice,” she said. “That number is actually lower than historic levels.”
For her, these patterns reinforce that the core issue for retailers is not shrinking labour participation but stalled economic growth.
Busy Stores, Leaner Staffing and a Shifting Consumer Profile
While November’s retail job losses appear stark on paper, Sears sees a livelier picture inside shopping centres. During a recent visit to Mapleview Centre in Burlington, she found both the parking lot and several stores operating at full capacity.
“I went into a Pandora store,” she said. “They must have had seven clerks in that store. The Apple Store was fully packed like it always is. You could not get a space in the parking lot.”
Despite the crowds, Sears observed that the mall did not feel packed, which suggests customers may be moving through stores efficiently while retailers run tighter staffing models. Even more interesting to her was the demographic shift.
“A good percentage of those shoppers were single men,” she said. “I saw them going by with little Sephora bags and jewelry bags. There is this belief that men do not like to shop. I think that is worth investigation.”
At the same time, the restaurant and entertainment industries continue to expand, often at retail’s expense. “We see a massive increase in hiring in the entertainment and restaurant industries,” Sears said. “They tend to be doing well, and I expect December results for restaurants to be very high. People are choosing more local entertainment and dining.”
Immigration Misconceptions Give Way to Wage and Population Realities
Sears remains adamant that foreign students and temporary workers have not displaced domestic retail employees. “The perception of immigrants taking our jobs could not be more false,” she said.
Foreign students often work fewer than 18 hours a week, she explained, and are more likely to accept shifts domestic workers avoid, including overnight schedules at 24-hour restaurants and convenience outlets.
“Employers gave the jobs to people who were willing to work the shifts they had to offer,” she said.
The broader issue, in her view, is that Canadians have less disposable income and fewer incentives to spend. “You cannot grow GDP without consumers,” she said. “If people had an extra thousand dollars a month, they would travel more, eat out more, spend more in stores.”
Everyday realities reinforce that tension. “Have you noticed how lately you cannot go anywhere for less than about seventy five bucks?” she said. “We went to Moxie’s and the bill came to $335. There is nothing special about it. That is the reality retailers and restaurants are operating in.”
How Retailers Should Approach 2026 After a Flat Year
With Canadian retail employment 2025 closing out as flat rather than fragile, Sears believes that retailers must resist the temptation to retreat.
“If they hide in a corner and hold back and refuse to hire, if they have the bomb shelter mentality, it is the bomb shelter results they are going to get,” she said. “The only way to grow is to push forward.”
She points out that despite retail’s uneven results, many markets continue to welcome new store openings, from national chains to local independents. The consumer is still present, still spending, and still drawn to shopping environments that deliver discovery, service and convenience.
Secondary provinces such as New Brunswick, which recorded significant population inflows over the past two years, also present opportunities. “New Brunswick is growing like weeds,” she said. “A $300,000 house still looks like what you expect it to be. That cheaper way of life draws people, and retailers will follow.”
The challenge for 2026 will be distinguishing short term noise from long term trends. A retail workforce that did not grow in 2025 is not necessarily a sign of decline. Instead, Sears sees it as a year in which businesses recalibrated, households reassessed their spending priorities and labour markets adjusted to fewer people working overall.
“We have had a scary year,” she said. “But the data also tells you that retail is mostly hanging on to the people it has. The question for 2026 is who will be brave enough to push forward while everyone else waits on the sidelines.”
