Western Canada leads in first-quarter job vacancies: Survey

399,000 job vacancies, rate of 2.6 per cent

OTTAWA (Reuters) — Resource-rich western Canada led the country in job vacancies in the first quarter, a new survey from Statistics Canada showed on Thursday.

The federal agency's largest business survey showed an estimated 399,900 job vacancies in the quarter, with a job vacancy rate of 2.6 per cent. By comparison, Statistics Canada's labour force survey had shown an average of 1.3 million unemployed people in the quarter.

Among the provinces, oil-producer Alberta showed the highest vacancy rate, of 3.5 per cent, followed by British Columbia at 3.3 per cent and Saskatchewan at three per cent.

The largest province, Ontario, was exactly at the 2.6 per cent national average. Job vacancies in manufacturing tended to be concentrated there.

A Statistics Canada official said one benefit of the new survey will be enabling individual Canadians to discern in detail in which locations the greatest demand is for their particular occupational skills.

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