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Canada’s labour market continues to be selective: available jobs, i.e., vacancies again fell this month, from 525,185 (November 2024) to 465,750 (November 2025) even as payroll employment edged up from 17.53 million to 17.61 million, pushing the burden onto tighter requisition control rather than headline layoffs.
Canada’s labour market has been cooling decisively, with job vacancies continuing to fall year on year, signalling an end to the post-pandemic era of broad, urgent hiring. Yet pockets of strength remain: “other services” and manufacturing have recently added openings, while information and tech-related industries now show alarming vacancy declines.
Canada’s labour market is moving deeper into a phase of selective hiring. Vacancies are well below their peaks even as the core working-age population inches higher, wage growth continues to outpace inflation, and tenure is slipping in several white-collar and service industries. For HR leaders, this is a market with more candidates, but where retention, internal equity, and procedural fairness are under closer scrutiny from both regulators and tribunals.
In contrast to last month, the general decline of available jobs has touched virtually all of the Canadian economy. July saw available jobs fall to their lowest level of 2024, with only two industries posting any year-over-year vacancy growth. Employee numbers, however, continued to rise, marking a decisive shift from labour scarcity to selective hiring.
Core-age unemployment spiked even as real wages finally climbed above inflation, underscoring a selective hiring environment. The recently well-performing finance, information and culture, and utilities industries remain the few adding job vacancies. Construction and professional services shed roles, and tenure fell. Tribunal caseloads surged again in Ontario and Nova Scotia
In the past decade, service-producing industries led by digital, finance and cultural sectors have raced ahead with over 40 percent wage gains. Goods-producing sectors posted slower gains, but remained better paid. The average Canadian worker has seen only 3 percent wage growth; almost no real wage growth. All are essential for HR leaders to understand
