Which sectors saw the biggest gains? StatCan provides insights
Canadian payroll employment grew at a much slower pace in May and wage growth cooled from the previous month, a trend HR professionals should track closely as it signals a labour market that is stabilizing rather than tightening, according to numbers from Statistics Canada (StatCan).
Payroll employment rose by 24,100 positions (+0.1%) in May, Statistics Canada reported, following a stronger increase of 59,000 (+0.3%) in April. Year over year, payroll employment was up 112,500 (+0.6%).
The gain was driven by public administration (+11,700; +0.9%), health care and social assistance (+6,800; +0.3%) and retail trade (+5,600; +0.3%), partially offset by losses in finance and insurance (-5,700; -0.7%) and professional, scientific and technical services (-3,400; -0.3%), the agency said. Public administration payrolls have grown for three consecutive months, with StatCan attributing part of May's federal gain to the hiring of census enumerators and crew leaders.
Finance and insurance shed 5,700 positions (-0.7%) in May, reversing an upward trend that had added 10,900 jobs between December and April, Statistics Canada reported. The decline was concentrated in securities and commodity contracts intermediation and brokerage, down 5,300 positions (-9.6%).
Professional, scientific and technical services fell by 3,400 positions (-0.3%), after four months of little change, according to the agency. Year over year, the sector was down 7,500 (-0.6%), led by losses in computer systems design services. The divergence between growing and shrinking sectors signals where HR professionals hold leverage in hiring and retention.
Overall, 74% of Canadian hiring managers feel positive about their company's hiring outlook for the remainder of 2026, up from 67% in the fall of 2025, according to a previous Express Employment Professionals study.
But Canadian small business hiring intentions are splitting from those of larger employers, HRD recently reported.
Wages, job vacancies
Average weekly earnings reached $1,337.77 in May, little changed from April but up 3.4% year over year, following a 3.7% increase in April, Statistics Canada reported. The agency noted that "growth in average weekly earnings can reflect a range of factors, including changes in wages, composition of employment, hours worked and base-year effects."
Average weekly hours worked held at 33.4 hours in May, little changed monthly and year over year. The moderating wage growth is a figure compensation teams will want to weigh when benchmarking salaries for the rest of the fiscal year.
Job vacancies stood at 495,700 in May, little changed from April, Statistics Canada said, marking the fifth consecutive month of little variation. The job vacancy rate was 2.8%, unchanged year over year and within the narrow 2.7%-to-2.8% range held since April 2025.
Vacancies rose in construction (+5,900; +18.4%) and professional, scientific and technical services (+4,500; +13.8%), but fell in health care and social assistance (-11,500; -11.6%), which StatCan described as "the first significant monthly decrease for this sector since December 2024." Vacancies there, at 87,500, were the lowest since March 2020.
There were 3.0 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in May, down 0.2 from a year earlier — a narrowing ratio recruitment teams should factor into hiring timelines. Ontario was the only province to post a significant change, with vacancies up 9,300 (+5.6%).
In a previous report, RBC noted that the labour market is still not strong, with the unemployment rate still higher than normal. But economic growth data has also shown signs of picking up in Q2 after stalling over the winter, according to the bank.
“U.S. tariff rates have been drifting broadly lower rather than higher -- CUSMA continues to backstop duty-free trade for most Canadian exports to the U.S. And oil prices have moved off of April/May peaks despite uncertainty around the evolution of the conflict in the middle east,” it said.
“Against that backdrop, the May labour market data is broadly consistent with our own base-case that Canada's economy is broadly still improving on a per-person and per-worker basis and we continue to look for the unemployment rate to edge down further over the second half of the year.”
