Job vacancies down: StatsCan

Construction sector has highest number of unemployed people per job opening

Job vacancies in Canada are down compared to last year, according to the latest numbers from Statistics Canada.

In a report released on Sept. 17, StatsCan reported there were 216,000 job vacancies for a three-month period ending in June 2013, down 47,000 from June 2012. For every job vacancy, there were 6.3 unemployed people — up from 5.2 last year.

Because the number of unemployed people barely changed, the increase in the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio was likely due to fewer job openings.

Those numbers rose in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with Ontario seeing the biggest jump. In June 2012, there were 6.8 unemployed people for every job vacancy in Ontario — that rose to a whopping 8.6 people in June 2013.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the job-to-vacancy ratio almost doubled, but despite that, they still remained the provinces with the lowest vacancy numbers. Alberta also happens to be the province with the highest job vacancy rate. That means the number of positions available are the highest compared to the number of people there to fill them (likely due to periods of economic growth).

Of all the industries, the construction sector has the highest number of unemployed people per opening, up from 3.9 in 2012 to 8.0 in 2013.

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