Businesses report more job vacancies: StatsCan

Health care, administrative services have highest unemployment-to-job-vacancy ratio

Compared to this time last year, the Canadian job market has more job openings, according to a report released today from Statistics Canada.

Businesses in the country reported 235,000 job vacancies in June, up 15,000 compared to June 2013. For every job vacancy, there were 5.8 unemployed people, down slightly from 6.2 in June 2013, due in large part to the upswing in job vacancies, the agency noted.

In Ontario, there were 7.1 unemployed people for every job vacancy, down from 8.4 in June of last year. British Columbia saw a decline as well, from 5.1 unemployed person per job opening to 4.3 over those 12 months. In British Columbia’s case, this was a result of fewer people being unemployed in the province, as the number of job vacancies was little changed. The rest of the provinces saw minimal difference in their unemployment-to-job-vacancy ratios.

The sector with the highest number of unemployed people for every opening was the administrative and support services industry, which had 7.8 people per vacancy – up from 5.0 in 2013. Health care and social assistance also saw a rise, from 1.3 to 1.7. Wholesale trade, on the other hand, was down, currently at 2.6 people, compared to 4.4 in the year prior. Smaller industrial sectors (think repair, maintenance or laundry services) was the only other sector with a notable drop – from 3.3 to 2.3.

When weighted against last year, only two sectors saw a significant decline in the job vacancy rate, while three saw growth. Health care and social assistance, for instance, had a rate of 1.6 per cent in June 2014, down from 1.8 per cent one year earlier. Administrative and support services was also down from 1.7 per cent to one per cent.

However, accommodation and food service vacancy rate grew from 2.3 per cent to three per cent over the 12-month period. The rates for finance and insurance as well as Aboriginal public administration also saw growth.

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