Construction job vacancies hold steady in Q3
The number of job vacancies in the construction sector held steady at about 81,100 during the third quarter of this year, Statistics Canada reports.
Even with this news, the number of vacancies in the industry remains at or near record highs. Construction’s job vacancy rate, which shows the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand, was 6.7% in the third quarter, up from 6.1% in the same quarter of 2021. Job vacancies growth (+17.4%) continued to outpace payroll employment growth (+6.4%).
The number of vacancies for electricians (+51.5%; +1,800), carpenters (+19.6%; +2,100) and construction trades helpers and labourers (+12.9%; +2,900) rose from the third quarter of 2021.
Meanwhile, across the broader economy, employers were actively seeking to fill 959,600 vacant positions in the third quarter. That number was down 3.3% from the record high reached in the second quarter (992,200). However, the number of job vacancies in the third quarter remained elevated; it was 8.3% higher than in the third quarter of 2021 and 72.7% higher than in the first quarter of 2020.
The national, all-industry job vacancy rate was 5.4% in the third quarter of 2022, down from 5.7% in the second quarter. It was up from 3.3% in the first quarter of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There was an average of 1.1 unemployed persons for each job vacancy in Canada in the third quarter of 2022, similar to the record low reached in the second quarter. In comparison, there was an average of 2.3 unemployed persons for each job vacancy in the first quarter of 2020. The unemployment to job vacancy ratio has declined steadily since the first quarter of 2016, along with the increase in the job vacancy rate.
Offered wages increase markedly in 10 of 40 broad occupation groups
Faced with a tight labour market and hiring difficulties, some employers have responded by raising the offered wages of their vacancies.
Compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the average offered hourly wage increased by 7.5% to $24.20 in the third quarter. In comparison, average hourly wages of all employees (measured in the Labour Force Survey) rose 5.3% over the same period.
Part of this increase was due to a shift in the relative composition of job vacancies from lower-offered-wage to higher-offered-wage occupations. Using a method that holds the composition of job vacancies by occupation at the average of the third quarter of 2021, year-over-year offered wage growth would have been 5.5% in the third quarter of 2022.
On a year-over-year basis, the increase in average offered hourly wage in the third quarter matched or exceeded the national average (+7.5%) in 10 of the 40 broad national occupational classification groups, representing 25.4% of total vacancies.
Broad occupations with notably higher than the average increases in offered wages included middle management occupations in trades, transportation, production and utilities (+10.8% to $41.40); assisting occupations in support of health services (+10.7% to $22.45); assemblers in manufacturing (+10.4% to $20.05); and processing and manufacturing machine operators and related production workers (+10.2% to $20.20).
In contrast, care providers and educational, legal and public protection support occupations (+2.5% to $19.80); office support occupations (+3.1% to $21.20); and harvesting and landscaping and natural resources labourers (+3.8% to $19.85) recorded the lowest growth rates in offered wages.