Number of job vacancies down in the third quarter: Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada says the number of job vacancies fell in the third quarter after reaching a record high in the second quarter.

The agency says employers in Canada were actively seeking to fill 959,600 vacant positions in the third quarter, down 3.3% from 992,200 in the April-to-June period.

However, job vacancies in the third quarter remained elevated compared with before the pandemic.

The job vacancy rate – which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand – was 5.4% in the third quarter, down from 5.7% in the second quarter, but up from 3.3% in the first quarter of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Statistics Canada says there was an average of 1.1 unemployed persons for each job vacancy in the third quarter of 2022, similar to the record low reached in the second quarter.

However, the reading compared with an average of 2.3 unemployed persons for each job vacancy in the first quarter of 2020.