Average weekly earnings in Canada reached $1,297.44 in April, up 4.4% year over year and up 0.8% compared to March, according to data Statistics Canada released Thursday.
However, payroll employment declined by 6,200 workers, following drops in February and March. On a year-over-year basis, payroll employment was up 0.2% (30,400) in April.
In April, monthly payroll employment declines were recorded in nine of 20 sectors, including manufacturing (-0.5%), accommodation and food services (-0.4%), retail trade (-0.3%) and administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (-0.6%). These declines were partially offset by gains in health care and social assistance (0.4%), public administration (0.5%) and educational services (0.4%). The remaining eight sectors recorded little change.
There were 501,300 job vacancies in April, down 16,800, or 3.2% from March. Compared to April 2024, job vacancies were down 91,400, or15.4%.
In finance and insurance, job vacancies fell 18% or 4,000 compared to March. And compared with the peak of April 2022, vacancies in the sector were down by nearly 60% or 27,000. However, there was little change in vacancies between April 2024 and April 2025.
The overall job vacancy rate was 2.8% in April, down from 2.9% in March and 3.3% in April 2024. That was the lowest job vacancy rate since October 2017.
There were 3.1 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in April, up from 2.9 in March. This increase was due to both a drop in job vacancies (down 15.3% excluding territories) and an increase in the number of unemployed persons (up 13.9%).