The labour market in Saskatchewan appears to be tightening up.
We saw a drop of about 5,000 job vacancies in Saskatchewan from September to October. We had been sitting at the top of the list of provinces when it came to positions going unfilled as employers were scrambling to find talent.
But in October that spread fell from roughly 24,000 positions created by employers but were yet to be filled in September to 19,000 in October.
Just what caused the narrowing of the gap between jobs and people to fill them is not completely clear. Part of the reason may be a tightening of the market as employers are slowing their job creation due to softer demand or seasonality.
But it might also have to do with population. We saw our head count rise by almost 10,000 in Saskatchewan from July to September so there were a lot more people available to answer the calls of employers shoring up their payrolls.
Nationally, the vacancy rate was dropping as well and the highest percentage of vacancies are in fields such as health care and food service.
