Canada Jobs Market Remains Tight As Hybrid Work Arrangements Become Popular

Almost one in 10 Canadian workers are now opting to work from home at least part of the time and spend the rest of the week working in another location as hybrid arrangements grew in popularity in November, reports Statistics Canada. 

“The proportion of workers who have hybrid arrangements – that is, who usually work both at home and in a location other than home – rose by 0.4 percentage points to 9.4 per cent in November, continuing a gradual upward trend since the beginning of 2022,” notes the statistics agency in its latest Labour Force Survey.

It’s particularly significant that the rise in hybrid work arrangements is not coming at the expense of work-from-home situations. In the post-COVID-19 pandemic reality, almost one in six Canadian workers is working from home.

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“The proportion of workers who usually work exclusively at home, 15.6 per cent, was little changed in November,” states Statistics Canada. 

Most of the new Canada jobs are full-time. 

“Since November 2021, when full-time employment first surpassed its pre-COVID-19 pandemic level, full-time work has grown by 460,000 jobs, up 2.9 per cent … Overall, the share of workers employed on a full-time basis increased by 0.8 percentage points to 81.9 per cent in the 12 months to November,” reports Statistics Canada.

In its Labour Force Survey released on Friday, Statistics Canada paints a picture of an on-going, very tight labour market in the country with employers increasingly under pressure to increase wages.

“Growth in the average hourly wages of employees remained above five per cent for a sixth consecutive month, rising 5.6 per cent, up $1.71 to $32.11 per hour, on a year-over-year basis in November,” reports Statistics Canada.

The country added 10,000 paid, filled jobs in November and the unemployment rate dipped 0.1 per cent to 5.1 per cent with most newly-hired women aged 25 to 54 years of age with jobs in finance, insurance, real estate and recreation. 

In November, another 21,000 people landed jobs in the finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing sectors with those jobs fairly evenly spread across the country.

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The manufacturing sector also added jobs, 19,000, that month, building on the gain of 24,000 new jobs in October, with most of the latest jobs in that sector being in Quebec and Alberta.

“The information, culture and recreation industry saw employment gains of 16,000, up 1.9 per cent, in November,” reports Statistics Canada. 

“This was the first increase in the industry since public health restrictions were eased in February 2022, following the fifth wave of the pandemic. Compared with 12 months earlier, employment in the industry was up 35,000 jobs.”

Young Men Saw A Drop In Jobs In November, Notes Labour Force Survey

Employment slumped a bit for teenage boys and young men aged 15 to 24, particularly in construction and wholesale and retail trade.

“The number of people working in construction fell by 25,000, down 1.6 per cent in November, fully offsetting the increase recorded in October,” reports Statistics Canada.

“Most of the declines were in Alberta, which shed 13,000 jobs,  and British Columbia, which lost 9,200 jobs. (But) on a year-over-year basis, employment in construction was up by 84,000, or 5.9 per cent, entirely due to gains from December 2021 to March 2022.”

The overall employment rate for those of working age rose by 0.8 per cent to hit 84.7 per cent in November due primarily to gains by women whose core employment rate hit 81.6 per cent that month.

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“This was the highest rate for core-aged women since comparable data became available in 1976, and similar to the previous high of 81.4 per cent recorded in May 2022,” notes Statistics Canada.

Immigrant women are also benefiting from this improving labour market for women in Canada.

“Among very recent immigrants, those admitted to Canada within the previous five years, the employment rate of core-aged women was 69.7 per cent, the highest for the month of November for this group since comparable data became available in 2006,” notes Statistics Canada.

The federal agency chalks this up to the higher levels of education of recently-immigrated women.

“This is consistent with results from the 2021 Census of Population showing that recent immigrants had higher levels of education and more pre-admission experience in Canada than previous cohorts, both factors that may support labour market integration,” notes Statistics Canada.

Across the country, only the francophone province of Quebec saw a rise in employment, of 28,000 jobs. Employment fell in five provinces, including Alberta and British Columbia.