By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com – Statistics Canada reports that the number of employees receiving pay or benefits from their employer rose by 91,400 in December, after negligible gains in November.
As per the Survey of Payroll Employment and Hours, overall job vacancies at 848,800 were little changed from the 849,200 openings recorded in November
Vacancies were up in the health care and social assistance sector, rising by 13.8 per cent, which more than offset a similar decrease in November. Statistics Canada notes that this sector has seen job vacancies more than double since the beginning of the pandemic.
On a year-over-year basis, average weekly earnings grew 3.4% to $1,174 in December, down from a year-over-year growth of 4.0% recorded in November. Weekly earnings still remain well below inflation, 5.9% at the latest consumer price index reading.
Average weekly hours worked declined by- 1.5% to 33.1 hours.
Unlike the Labour Force Survey (which showed a blockbuster report of 150,000 job gains vs. the 15,000 expected, the SEPH measures only covers firms with formal payrolls, which excludes a large number of small businesses and jobs.
Economists count this as one reason that the SEPH is a less indicative reading of the Canadian jobs market.
Derek Holt, Vice President and Head of Capital Markets Economics at Scotiabank (TSX:BNS) notes that in addition, the SEPH data “lags way too far behind the household survey and in the current climate it’s imperative to have fresh data”, and that “you don’t get the richness of information across other labour market indicatorsin SEPH that you do in the LFS”.
Holt does point out, however, that “notwithstanding monthly volatility that can drive significant differences in the two measures, the trends in the two measures tend to be close to one another over time.”