Quebec's labor market is “strong” in 2023, says IDQ report

Quebec's labor market remains relatively “robust” in 2023 despite the economic downturn, according to data compiled by the Institut du Quebec (IDQ).

“The network will create 67,000 jobs in Quebec (in 2023),” said Emna Braham, director of IDQ. “We are no longer at the post-pandemic level, but we are still at the same level of job creation as before the pandemic, between 2016 and 2019, when Quebec's economy was good. .

According to the IDQ report, despite high inflation, workers on average have maintained their purchasing power — something Braham said many people wanted to know.

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

“The spike in inflation that we experienced at the end of the pandemic has not completely eaten away at the wages that workers have earned,” he said.

2023 was a break in the creation of “quality jobs”, with most of the new jobs being part-time.

The post-pandemic trend toward better-paying job creation will reverse in 2023, the report says.

The economic slowdown caused by rising interest rates has also led to job losses.

In one year, the number of vacant jobs decreased from 211 thousand to 149 thousand.

The unemployment rate also increased slightly, from 4.1 percent to 4.7 percent between December 2022 and December 2023.

The situation varies by industry, with the health and construction sectors still experiencing labor shortages.

In contrast, the financial, insurance and real estate services sector had only 13,000 fewer workers at the end of the year.

An increase in the labor force due to immigration also helped to eliminate the deficit.

“We've seen that workforce grow significantly in the last year, by about 100,000 people,” explains Braham. “This is an increase over the past year, mainly due to temporary immigration.”

The economic downturn hit permanent immigrants hard, with the unemployment rate rising from 4.7 percent to 7.5 percent between December 2022 and December 2023.

In contrast, the Canadian-born unemployment rate rose slightly from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent.

Even so, the unemployment rate for permanent immigrants remains relatively low compared to more than 10 percent a decade ago, but Braham said the trend remains “alarming.”

“What's troubling is that the unemployment rate gap between Canadian-born and immigrants has been narrowing in recent years,” he said. “But now we're seeing an increase in unemployment among permanent immigrants.”

— This Canadian Press report was first published in French on February 7, 2024.