Average weekly earnings up 3.3% in May

May’s average weekly earnings in Canada were $1,293.52, up 3.3% compared to the same month last year, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

Payroll employment increased by 15,300 (or 0.1%) in May, month over month, after another 0.1% increase in April. On a year-over-year basis, payroll employment increased 43,300 (0.2%) in May.

There were monthly increases in payroll employment in May in health care and social assistance (0.3%), retail trade (0.3%) and construction (0.1%). These gains were partially offset by declines in manufacturing (-0.4%), administrative and support, waste management and remediation services (-0.4%) and wholesale trade (-0.3%).

The net decline in manufacturing payroll employment from December 2024 to May 2025 was primarily the result of soft motor vehicle parts manufacturing numbers.

At the same time, job vacancies in Canada fell by 4.1% to 478,200 in May compared to April. This was the lowest level of job vacancies recorded since October 2017 (459,800). Job vacancies were down 89,700 (-15.8%) in May 2025 compared to May 2024.

There were 3.3 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in May 2025, up from 3.1 in April. This was the highest unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio since January 2017, excluding the Covid pandemic period.

Job vacancies were up in finance and insurance (19%) and wholesale trade (16.3%). The increases were partially offset by declines in April in both sectors.

Quebec was the only province to record a significant decrease in its number of job vacancies (-10.7%). The number of vacancies changed little in other provinces in May.

Jonathan Got

Jonathan Got is a reporter with Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. Reach him at jonathan@newcom.ca.