Employers in Saskatchewan are defying the national trend by creating jobs – so many jobs – that they can’t find enough people to fill them.
Job vacancies is one of those metrics that helps us understand the broader economy and whether or not things such as higher interest rates are actually making an impact. Are employment levels declining, which will lower inflationary pressures?
What we’re seeing nationally is just that. Lower numbers of jobs going unfilled meaning employers are finding people to fill their payrolls. But here in Saskatchewan the trend is in the other direction.
We continue to see employers creating more jobs than there are people to fill them so the vacancy rate has risen about 15 per cent or 3,000 positions from the first quarter of last year to the same time this year.
The bulk of the vacancies are north of a line through Davidson. Vacancies are actually down in the Regina area and other southern regions while employers in the line through Saskatoon and Biggar and farther north find worker availability trailing job creation.
