According to the latest results from Statistics Canada’s Job Vacancy and Wage Survey, employers in Alberta were actively seeking to fill over 100,000 vacant positions in the second quarter of 2022.

Adjusting for regular seasonal variations, vacancies in the province were up by 4.4% compared to the first quarter of the year.

The number of vacant positions in the country as a whole in the second quarter came in at just under one million, up by 4.7% from the previous quarter.

Taking a somewhat longer view, vacancies in Alberta in the second quarter of 2022 were 86% higher than the same quarter in 2019. They were up by 80% in Canada as a whole.

As a result, the job vacancy rate* in Alberta has gone from 2.7% in the second quarter of 2019 to 4.9% in the second quarter of 2022 while the national rate has gone from 3.3% to 5.7%.

British Columbia had the highest vacancy rate among the provinces at 6.6% in the second quarter. Newfoundland and Labrador had the lowest rate at 3.8%.

In Alberta, the accommodation and food services sector had the highest vacancy rate at 10.5% (unadjusted) followed by construction at 7.4%, and by arts, entertainment and recreation at 6.7%. Educational services had the lowest rate in the second quarter at 1.5%.

Because it takes time to match jobs to applicants, open positions are not unusual, but the rise in the number of vacancies points to a tightening labour market and corresponds to reports from employers of rising labour shortages.

*The job vacancy rate = the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand (the sum of filled and vacant positions).

Answer to the previous trivia question: According to Natural Resources Canada, the total value of publicly-traded Canadian natural resource extraction company assets in 2019 was $597 billion

Today’s trivia question: Who was the first Scot to be featured on an English banknote?