Explore the balance of youth employment in the labour market

Understanding job vacancies and labour force participants

This dashboard compares, across selected dimensions, the total number of job vacancies with the size of the current labour force. The comparison examines trends over time in the amount of available unfilled work and the number of people who may actively seek those positions.  

The balance of vacancies and participants has implications for job switching, skills training, and other labour market conditions, which mark the velocity at which workers seek and find work.  

Job vacancies

The number of job vacancies is the number of unfilled positions among employers, illustrating the extent of unmet labour demand. A high number of vacancies could indicate labour shortages, meaning there is insufficient labour to fill the open positions.  

• A position is considered vacant in the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey (JVWS) if it meets the following criteria (Statistics Canada, 2024e):    
• The position is vacant on the reference date, or is expected to become vacant in the following month,  
• There are associated tasks to be carried out over the following month,    
• The employer is actively recruiting outside the organisation, and
• The position is not reserved for non-employees such as volunteers, external consultants, or subcontractors.  Vacancy rates can signal a lot about the labour market. High and prolonged vacancy rates can tell us where employers are struggling to fill positions, and where there is a high demand for work from employers.  

Vacancies data is subject to revision; exact counts may fluctuate with subsequent releases.

Labour force participation / participation rate

Labour force participation is the number of people currently working or looking for work. The participation rate is the number of people participating in the labour market as a share of the total working-age population. When calculating the participation rate, a person is considered to be participating in the labour market only if they are either employed or unemployed.

The higher the participation rate, the more engaged the population is in the labour market. Decreasing participation rates can indicate that workers are frustrated due to difficulty finding work or managing other labour market issues, and choosing to leave the labour market until circumstances improve.

The number of labour force participants are provided from Statistics Canada are provided monthly, while Vacancies data is provided quarterly. Labour force participants are averaged over quarters to match up with the frequency of vacancies in the dashboard. 

Table notes

Geography

Provinces or all of Canada. Territorial data are not available for labour force participation. As a result, aggregated totals for Canada as a whole include Vacancies counts from the territories, while labour force participation includes provinces only.

Educational Attainment

High school education or below 

Job postings that require a high school education, some high school education (no graduation requirement), only a primary school education, or job postings that do not have a minimum education requirement.  

Tertiary education below a bachelor’s degree 

Job postings that require one of the following credentials:

• Non-university certificate or diploma
• Trade certificate or diploma, or apprenticeship certificate
• College, CEGEP and other non-university certificates or diplomas

Bachelor’s degree 

Those with a bachelor’s degree.  

Graduate degree (above a bachelor’s degree)  

Those with a master’s, doctoral or professional degree (MD, JD, etc).  

References

Statistics Canada. Labour force characteristics by educational attainment, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410001901

Statistics Canada. Job vacancies, proportion of job vacancies and average offered hourly wage by occupation and selected characteristics, quarterly, unadjusted for seasonality. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1410044301

Statistics Canada. Guide to the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey, 2024. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-514-g/75-514-g2024001-eng.htm