Employers in Alberta reported 5,100 (+9.5 per cent) more job vacancies in the third quarter of 2018 compared with the same quarter one year earlier, according to Statistics Canada.
The federal agency reported Wednesday that on a year-over-year basis this rate of increase was somewhat slower than the rate in the five previous quarters (around 20 per cent).
“Increases in health care and social assistance (+2,000 or +56.5 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (+1,800 or +56.0 per cent) were partially offset by declines in accommodation and food services (-1,100 or -10.7 per cent) and construction (-800 or -12.1 per cent). The job vacancy rate in Alberta rose 0.2 percentage points year over year, to 2.9 per cent in the third quarter,” it said.
The job vacancy rate represents the number of job vacancies expressed as a percentage of labour demand; that is, the sum of all occupied and vacant jobs, explained StatsCan.
Across the country, there were 551,000 job vacancies in the third quarter, up 83,000 (+17.8 per cent) from the third quarter of 2017. Over the same period, the job vacancy rate increased 0.4 percentage points to 3.3 per cent, it said.
“This was the eighth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase in both the number of job vacancies and the job vacancy rate.”
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