economy
A HEADWIND TO ECONOMIC GROWTH? While there is lots to feel good about when it comes to labour markets in Canada generally and here in British Columbia specifically, not all aspects of the job market are faring as well as we might hope. Somewhat paradoxically, job vacancy rates—calculated as the number of positions that are unfilled as a share of all filled and unfilled positions—are at all-time highs across the country and across sectors, despite the existence of (a modicum of ) slack in our labour market. Nationally, the job vacancy rate most recently sits at 5.3%, up from 3.0% prior to the pandemic, while in British Columbia it’s reached 6.1%, up from 3.8%. While the focus of this section is on BC, it’s worth noting that Metro Vancouver’s job vacancy rate sits at 6.0%, up from 4.2%. What does this matter? Well, because all else being equal, the higher the job vacancy rate, the more employment and economic growth
are being held back from the level they’d naturally gravitate towards (which, perhaps said needlessly, would be higher than our current experience). Digging into the sectoral breakdown of these vacancy rates shows that not all industries are suffering equally. In an ironic twist, accommodation and food services— the sector hit hardest during the worst of the pandemic—has far and away the highest job vacancy rate in the province, at 11.3%, as restaurants and hotels struggle to replace previously-lost staff at the same time that Covid restrictions are easing. A concerning figure for supply-side housing market prospects is the 8.5% vacancy rate in construction, which is up from 5.3% prior to the pandemic. The good news? With migration picking up and government financial supports lessening, there will be more workers to fill these positions in the coming months.
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