With unemployment rate rising, job vacancies fall in Canada: surveys

OTTAWA – The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says the number of job vacancies dropped slightly during the second quarter, an indication of a weaker labour market.

The group representing small and medium-sized businesses says there were 289,800 unfilled jobs in the private sector during the April-July period, a drop of about 5,000 from the previous quarter.

The estimate is higher than the 225,000 job vacancies reported by Statistics Canada in May, although the two surveys were in agreement that vacancies are dropping.

CFIB chief economist Ted Mallet says the problem appears more acute for small businesses, which have a vacancy rate more than twice that of larger firms.

The CFIB notes that historically, vacancies fall as the unemployment rate rises.

At 2.4 per cent of the market, the job vacancy rate in the CFIB survey remains higher than levels seen just following the recession, but lower than the 2.8 per cent pre-recession peak in late 2007 and early 2008, when the unemployment rate stood near six per cent.

July saw the jobless rate rise one-tenth of a point to 7.2 per cent as the economy shed 39,000 workers.

The small business lobby group released the survey results in advance of a “Twitter chat” scheduled for Thursday afternoon with Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney.

The federal government, with support from business groups, have argued Canada faces an imminent labour shortage, requiring changes to employment insurance.

In the March budget, the government also pledged to create a jobs grant program whereby Ottawa, the provinces and businesses share equally – up to a total of $15,000 – in the cost of training a worker for an unfilled job.

The so-called “job grant” has been opposed by some provinces as ill-thought-out and an intrusion on their jurisdiction.