{"id":14583,"date":"2025-03-07T13:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/?p=14583"},"modified":"2025-04-04T10:35:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T14:35:52","slug":"february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/","title":{"rendered":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth. Employment in the highly exposed manufacturing industry ticked down slightly, in line with most other sectors, while overall layoffs remained low, helping to keep the unemployment rate steady at 6.6%. For now, we\u2019re still in the world of typical Labour Force Survey (LFS) monthly volatility. We\u2019ll have to wait another month to see if the new era facing the Canadian economy is becoming evident in the job numbers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>February&#8217;s employment growth slowdown also showcased another trend that\u2019s fallen out of the spotlight recently: The pace of population growth is slowing. According to the LFS figures, the number of adults in Canada rose by 47 thousand in the month, far below last summer\u2019s pace of over 100 thousand. Given that changes in LFS tend to lag other population data sources, it\u2019s possible the actual change in employment may have been flatter than recorded in recent months, consistent with softer payroll recently reported in the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, wage growth bucked recent trends. Growth in average hourly earnings eased for three consecutive months heading into February, but perked up again, from 3.5% to 3.8% year-over-year. This trend isn\u2019t a problem as long as inflation holds steady, but it\u2019s vulnerable to the trade shock going forward, particularly if shocks in exposed sectors start impacting demand throughout the economy. Total Canadian job postings <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BrendonBernard_\/status\/1896671723384348691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ticked down in February<\/a> (-2.6%), not a dramatic shift, but were led by a 7.2% drop in postings for manufacturing and production occupations, a sign of the concerning outlook for the sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The trade shock\u2019s impacts are still on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":14584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"recruiter-hub-blocks.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_mwm_category":[715],"post_topic":[],"post_content_type":[],"post_duration":[],"post_actions":[],"post_franchise":[],"post_mwm_author":[670],"class_list":["post-14583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_mwm_category-state-of-the-labour-market","post_mwm_author-bbernard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Indeed Hiring Lab Canada\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"914\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brendon Bernard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"ltheissen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353\"},\"headline\":\"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\"},\"wordCount\":294,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\",\"name\":\"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353\"},\"description\":\"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png\",\"width\":1600,\"height\":914,\"caption\":\"Two-panel line chart titled \u201cLayoffs remained low in February\u201d shows the share of Canadian employees who started a new job, and were laid off, with four lines in each panel, representing the monthly rate in 2023, 2024, 2025, and the average over 2017-2019. Both measures of labour market movement were below their seasonal norms in February.\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/\",\"name\":\"Indeed Hiring Lab Canada\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353\",\"name\":\"ltheissen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"ltheissen\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/author\/ltheissen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada","description":"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada","og_description":"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/","og_site_name":"Indeed Hiring Lab Canada","article_published_time":"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":914,"url":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Brendon Bernard","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/"},"author":{"name":"ltheissen","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353"},"headline":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt","datePublished":"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/"},"wordCount":294,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png","inLanguage":"en-CA"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/","url":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/","name":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt - Indeed Hiring Lab Canada","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png","datePublished":"2025-03-07T18:44:17+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-04T14:35:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353"},"description":"The labour market\u2019s mini hot streak cooled in February, though it\u2019s unlikely the prospective trade war directly caused the pause in job growth.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-CA","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-CA","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d341ezm4iqaae0.cloudfront.net\/hiringlaborg\/sites\/2\/2025\/03\/02120526\/image.png","width":1600,"height":914,"caption":"Two-panel line chart titled \u201cLayoffs remained low in February\u201d shows the share of Canadian employees who started a new job, and were laid off, with four lines in each panel, representing the monthly rate in 2023, 2024, 2025, and the average over 2017-2019. Both measures of labour market movement were below their seasonal norms in February."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/2025\/03\/07\/february-labour-force-survey-a-stall-but-not-a-jolt\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"February Labour Force Survey: A Stall, but Not a Jolt"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/","name":"Indeed Hiring Lab Canada","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-CA"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/#\/schema\/person\/4b5c7a64267b1cb495fb45e90277f353","name":"ltheissen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-CA","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6367a954a4c7eb916945e225eca8caf2ceb055d42150b6a655ede10de2750ac2?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ltheissen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/author\/ltheissen\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_mwm_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_mwm_category?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_topic?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_content_type?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_duration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_duration?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_actions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_actions?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_franchise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_franchise?post=14583"},{"taxonomy":"post_mwm_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiringlab.org\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_mwm_author?post=14583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}