Quebec job market remained ‘robust’ in 2023

Quebec’s labour market remained “robust” in 2023, despite the economic slowdown according to data collected by the Institut du Québec (IDQ).

“There was still a net creation of 67,000 jobs in Quebec (in 2023),” said Emna Braham, director of the IDQ. “We are no longer at the level of post-pandemic catch-up, but we are still at a level of job creation which is close to what we experienced on the eve of the pandemic, between 2016 and 2019, at times when Quebec’s economy was going well.”

Despite high inflation, workers, on average, have maintained their purchasing power, according to the IDQ report, which is something Braham says people inquire the most about.

The average hourly wage was $33.02 in December 2023, compared to $31.87 in December 2019, before the pandemic.

“Ultimately, the galloping inflation that we experienced at the end of the pandemic did not entirely eat away the salary gains that workers were able to make,” she said.

The year 2023 marked a pause in the creation of “quality jobs” while most new jobs are part-time.

The trend towards the creation of well-paid jobs observed at the end of the pandemic has faded in 2023 the report states.

However, in December, the proportion of well-paid jobs in the overall labor market (48 per cent) remains higher than before the pandemic (45 per cent).

The economic slowdown caused by rising interest rates has led to a reduction in the number of jobs.  

The number of vacancies fell from 211,000 to 149,000 in one year.

Also, the unemployment rate increased slightly, from 4.1 per cent to 4.7 per cent between December 2022 to December 2023.

The situation varies by industry, with the health and construction sectors experiencing a labor shortage.

Meanwhile, the finance, insurance and real estate services sector had just 13,000 fewer workers at the end of the year.

The increase in the working population due to immigration, has helped to alleviate the labor shortage.

“We see that this labor supply has really increased significantly over the last year, almost 100,000 more people,” explains Braham. “This growth has been largely attributable to temporary immigration over the past year.”

The economic slowdown hit permanent immigrants hardest, with their unemployment rate rising from 4.7 per cent to 7.5 per cent, from December 2022 to December 2023.

In contrast, those born in Canada saw the unemployment rate rise from 3.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent.

The unemployment rate remains relatively low for permanent immigrants compared to ten years ago when it exceeded 10 per cent but the trend remains “worrying” according to Braham.

“What we find concerning is that the trend was really towards a reduction in the gap in unemployment rates between immigrants and the Canadian-born in recent years. But there, we really saw that it was only the unemployment rate of permanent immigrants that increased.”

This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews.