Every month the Federal and Provincial Governments provide information about the employment and unemployment statistics, average weekly wage, and job vacancies along with a variety of other economic data.

The monthly Labour Force Statistics provide month over month and year over year information along with a breakdown of employment by industry.

The July 2019 data release in early August tells us:

  • The overall unemployment rate is 7.0% and has increased by 0.3% since last July which is 12,300 more people actively looking for work in July than was the case last July.
  • It also tells us that a total of 177,600 people are actively looking for work which is an increase of 9,700 more people looking for work than there was in July 2018.
  • Calgary’s unemployment has gone down by just under 1%; Edmonton’s has gone up by 1%.

The good news is that employment is up this July over last July by 19,200 people. And the Canadian Federation of Independent Business indicates that Canada’s Job Vacancy Rate while not increasing is holding at 3.2% – roughly 429,000 unfilled jobs through the first half of this year.  It is highest in BC and Quebec and lowest in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Alberta’s unfilled jobs are down, sitting at 1.9% of Labour Demand.

https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/b754ca87-2e9b-4a80-b7b2-2cfef8e53ff4/resource/4f915d16-3092-40ce-9ff4-be525bb2aff5/download/public-package-2019-07.pdf

https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/sites/default/files/2019-08/help-wanted-2019-Q2_1.pdf

Labour Force Information