Canada’s job-shortage narrative is disappearing almost as fast as it was introduced. Statistics Canada (StatCan) data shows job vacancies plunged again in Q3 2025, hitting the lowest level in nearly 8 years—even as the population added millions. The shift puts employers back in control, already chipping away at the rapid wage growth reported in recent months.
Canadian Job Vacancies Fall To 7-Year Low, Half of 2022 Peak
Canadian Job Vacancies: Quarterly.
Source: StatCan; Better Dwelling.
Canadian job vacancies pulled back sharply in the past quarter—a trend that’s gaining steam. Vacant roles fell 2.8% (-14,000 jobs) to 492,500 jobs in Q3 2025, down 10.2% (-55,900 jobs) from last year. Job vacancies haven’t been this scarce since Q4 2017—nearly 8 years ago, even as Canada’s labour force added roughly 2.8 million people over the same period.
That’s a big difference from just a few years ago, when Canada was boasting of a labour shortage. Since the short-lived shortage peaked in Q2 2022, vacancies have declined 50.0% (-493,400 jobs). The count has fallen every quarter since the peak. It took just six quarters of pandemic restrictions to rocket to record highs, but has taken 13 quarters to grind back to multi-year lows.
Canada Only Has 28 Vacant Roles For Every 1,000 Workers
It’s not just the count that’s on the downturn either—but as a share of total jobs. The job vacancy rate is the measure of vacant jobs as a share of total labour demand—both filled and unfilled roles. This fell to 2.8% in Q3 2025, shedding 0.3 points since last year—the lowest rate in exactly 8 years. Or more bluntly put, for every 1,000 workers in Canada, only 28 jobs are empty and looking to be filled.
The shift effectively means employers are gaining the upper hand, reflected in advertised wages. Vacant jobs advertised an average hourly wage of $28.50 in Q3 2025, up 3.3% from last year. The jump still beats inflation, but this marked the lowest wage growth in 4 years. The narrative of an economy that’s struggling to find workers isn’t just fading—the data shows it’s effectively dead.
average wage is pretty generous considering the median salary is substantially lower for full time work.
Does this mean low skill jobs are almost completely gone? That was the goal when the minister said “international students are… needed for big box stores,” right?
Typically higher wage jobs tend to go unfilled as they require experience and skill that isn’t being satisfied, otherwise they would be filled.
That said, it’s not all that much money. The problem here is inflation is modeled for suppression while wages are averaged in the bluntest way possible. We need complicated structures that happen to minimize inflation, but use blunt tools that overstate wages. Imagine that!
Wait. Canada’s whole immigration-labour-shortage narrative is entirely due to employers not being able to find workers when they told everyone to stay home, interest rates were artificially low to provide stimulus, and the gov was handing out hundreds of millions to their friends with basically no real investment case?
Yes. It’s hard to believe leaders could be that incompetent but the proof is in the data…