Outdated numbers, sure -- they're for June -- but still worth reporting as the media continue to stoke recession fears in Canada: Statistics Canada reports today that payroll employment rose by 114,000 in June, while the number of job vacancies rose by 32,000, resulting in a job vacancy rate of 5.9 percent, matching the record high for the series.
The data come from the Survey of Employment Payrolls and Hours or SEPH. This is completely separate from the more familiar monthly labour force survey (LFS). That survey has shown some modest weakness in the last two reporting months (June and July), while still suggesting that the Canadian jobs market is extremely tight by all historical standards. The SEPH results seem to confirm that.
Both sets of data are consistent with anecdotal evidence in my own home region and all across the country. Employers are finding it difficult to source enough employees to run their businesses the way they did before the COVID pandemic. Here in Niagara, for example, at the height of the all-important tourist season, restaurants are having to close for parts of each week because of lack of staff, while local stores are having to tempt retirees back into the labour force in order to keep their doors open.
Can it continue this way? The anecdotal evidence suggests that the situation certainly hasn't changed in the two months since the SEPH data were collected. However, it is worth remembering that employment data tends to lag behind economic activity data, such as GDP, both on the upward and the downward side of the business cycle. Recall that Canada's GDP growth, in contrast to that of the US, appears to have remained positive through the first two quarters of the year. It may be that things have weakened in the current quarter, which would suggest that employment data might take a turn for the worse in the next few months. For now, though, there's no real evidence of that.
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