Construction employment and openings almost flat
By Adam Freill
Construction LabourStrike action in Quebec’s education sector make overall numbers look worse than the marginal dip that faced most industries in November.
Payroll employment decreased in educational services and seven other sectors in November. (Source: Statistics Canada, Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (2612), table 14-10-0220-01.)
Canada shed over 88,000 jobs in November of 2023, but the construction sector was spared much of the pain, dipping by just 0.1 per cent from the previous month. The 1,164,100 workers in the sector was almost 21,000 more employees than where the industry was in November of 2022, an increase of 1.8 per cent.
Most of the cross-sector decline in November was the result of strike action in Quebec’s education sector, as that pulled 63,000 positions from the employment figures. Excluding those figures, the overall decrease in national payroll employment was a more modest 25,300, matching the 0.1 per cent decline seen in the construction sector in November.
Overall job vacancies edged up to 653,000 in November, following little change in October and five consecutive monthly declines from May to September. Adjusted for seasonality, vacancies in the construction sector rose by almost 1,000 positions from October, with 58,635 openings in the sector, and a job vacancy rate of 4.8 per cent.
The national job vacancy rate—which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand—was up by 0.1 percentage points to 3.7 per cent in November; the first increase since January 2023.
