Coronavirus
Canadian Job Postings Through September 11: Progress Continues
The question is whether the recovery continues into the fall.
This post is updated as of September 14, reflecting data through September 11. We will be regularly updating this data as we track how COVID-19 impacts the global labour market.
Key points:
- As of September 11th, total job postings on Indeed Canada stood at 21% below last year’s trend, a modest improvement from the week prior.
- The gap in new postings, which can be volatile, widened to 10% below 2019’s path, from -3% a week earlier, reflecting a later Labour Day than last year.
Total job postings on Indeed Canada edged up compared to last year’s trend, as of Friday, September 11th, standing 21% below 2019 levels. The gap was -22% the previous Friday, up from -49% in early May. Overall, this suggests Canadian labour demand hasn’t yet plateaued in its gradual, yet still incomplete recovery.
Unlike total postings, new postings dipped last week, easing to 10% below last year’s trend, from -3% a week earlier, reflecting a later Labour Day holiday this year. The gap in new postings was still closer to 2019 levels than total postings, helping drive the latter’s recovery. The question as we head into the fall is if they can maintain the momentum that’s prevailed over the past few months, that has helped boost opportunities available to Canadian job seekers.
The rebound in Canadian job postings continues to be broad-based across provinces. Total job posting gaps narrowed similarly to the nationwide 7 percentage-point improvement between August 7th and September 11th, across nearly all provinces, with P.E.I., Saskatchewan, and Manitoba the closest to last year’s trend, while no region stands out as particularly lagging behind.
The public health situation and its economic spillovers continue to change on a daily basis. We’ll be regularly updating this data as conditions evolve.
Methodology
To measure the trends in job postings, we calculated the 7-day moving average of the number of job postings on Indeed Canada. We index each day’s 7-day moving average to the start of February (Feb 1, 2020 = 100 for 2020 data, and so on).
We report how the trend in job postings this year differs from last year, in order to focus on the recent changes in labor market conditions due to COVID-19. For example: if job postings increased 30% from February 1, 2019, to April 10, 2019, but only 20% from February 1, 2020, to April 10, 2020, then the index would have risen from 100 to 130 in 2019 and 100 to 120 in 2020. The year-to-date trend in job postings would therefore be down 7.7% on April 10 (120 is 7.7% below 130) in 2020 relative to 2019.
For new postings, we calculate a similar metric but the underlying measure is the number of postings that have been on Indeed for seven days or less.
Information based on publicly available information on the Indeed Canada website (and other countries named in the post), limited to Canada, is not a projection of future events, and includes both paid and unpaid job solicitations.
Brendon Bernard is an Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, focusing on the Canadian labour market. His research interests include analyzing how detailed trends in the job market fit in with broader developments in the Canadian economy. Brendon was previously an economist with Department of Finance Canada, where he focused on analyzing Canadian financial sector policy and the U.S. economy. He holds a Master’s in Economics from the Vancouver School of Economics at University of British Columbia, as well as a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Queen’s University.