Payroll employment decreases in four sectors, including construction, in August. (Sources: Statistics Canada, Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (2612), table 14-10-0220-01.)
Canada’s construction sector was one of the few bright spots in the latest Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours from Statistics Canada. While broad-based employment was little changed, gaining a net total of 3,300 workers in August, employment in the construction sector increased by 2,300 workers, or 0.2 per cent compared to July.
The monthly increase was led by building equipment contractors, a segment up by 2,600 positions, and non-residential building construction, which had its workforce grow by 1,200 positions.
Payroll employment in construction has partially rebounded from two consecutive declines that saw employment ranks shrink by 13,800, or 1.2 per cent, in January and February. Since March, payroll employment in construction has increased by 5,600 positions, with that gain being led by building equipment contractors and non-residential building construction.
Year over year, construction employment was up by 1,900 positions in August, in line with the 0.2 per cent gain seen across all market segments included in the Statistics Canada report. Compared to one year earlier, payroll employment was up by 31,500 positions.
Although the erosion of workforce numbers took a month off, job vacancies were not so fortunate. Job vacancies in Canada edged down to 457,400 in August. The 2.4 per cent contraction equated to 11,300 fewer openings, and represented the lowest number of vacancies since August of 2017. On a year-over-year basis, job vacancies were down 82,100 or slightly more than 15.2 per cent.
The job vacancy rate, or the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand, was unchanged from July, coming in at 2.6 per cent. That was down 0.4 percentage points from August of 2024. There were 3.5 unemployed persons for every job vacancy this past August, up from 3.3 in July. According to Statistics Canada, this was the highest unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio since November of 2016, aside from the period between April and September of 2020, as data were not collected during this phase of the pandemic.
In the construction sector, the seasonally adjusted number of job vacancies sat at 33,500 openings, with a job vacancy rate of 2.8 per cent. For the month, construction payroll employment came in at 1,173,000 workers.
