Some good news for Canadian job seekers
A new report
on job vacancies in Canada released by Statistics Canada this morning
reveals that there are more job openings and fewer unemployed people competing
for those jobs than there were at this time last year.
The report covers a three-month period ending in May.
There were an average of 258,000 job vacancies over that time frame, which is
22,000 more than at the same time in 2011. Also, for each of those open jobs,
there were 5.5 unemployed people in Canada this year. That ratio was 6.3
unemployed people per available job in 2011.
Statistics Canada attributes the reduction in the ratio
of unemployed people to job vacancies both to an increase in jobs and a reduction
in the number of people out of work. Both are good news for the Canadian labour
market.
And while the
latest Stats Can Labour Force Survey showed that the Canadian economy lost
some 30,000 jobs in July, there was good new hidden there too. The real story
is that there were roughly 50,000 fewer people working part-time jobs last month. This while there were actually around 20,000
more people working full time. So the job losses were almost entirely part-time
positions, and the economy added full-time jobs.
So despite the often
grim economic news reported daily, there are still opportunities out there
going unfilled and still new ones being created all the time. That’s something positive
to think about as we kick off another week. (Because, as I said in a recent
post, optimism
and confidence are self-fulfilling prophecies, so staying positive can be a
distinct advantage.)
