“Prosperous Hiring Pace”

According to data from this barometer, 48% of Quebec employers intend to hire staff in the next quarter, while 12% are more likely to downsize.

Adjusting for seasonal variations, Quebec’s net employment forecast for the first quarter of 2023 is +34%, up nine percentage points from forecasts announced in the last quarter of 2022, but four percentage points lower than last year’s period.

The Net Employment Projection (NEP) is the percentage of employers planning to hire, from which we subtract the percentage of those planning to downsize instead.

In short, “Quebec will see a prosperous hiring rate over the next few months,” summarized Anne-Marie Lanthier of Manpower’s Montreal office in a press release.

under Canadian skies

The climate is similar across Canada. At the Canadian level, the net employment forecast for the first quarter of 2023 is set at +34%, three points up from the fourth quarter of 2022 but three down from the same period last year.

The high pressure ridge lay over the Northern Territories, where the net employment forecast peaks at +64%, ahead of the West at +35%.

Optimism is little dampened in the Prairie and Atlantic regions, both of which have net employment forecasts of +33%. The barometer looks good in Ontario, where the share is identical to that of the first quarter of 2022 at + 32%.

Areas that get hot

Across Canada, the financial, real estate, industrial and basic sectors are showing the most overheating, with job prospects up 44%.

Closely followed by information technology (+40%), transport, logistics and automotive (+39%) and communication services (+38%).

Optimism matched to size

Note, however, that the size of companies more or less blushes the glasses with which they view the economic horizon.

With a hiring forecast of +43%, organizations with more than 250 employees are twice as optimistic as micro businesses with fewer than 10 employees (+19%) and small businesses with 10-49 employees (+23%).

At other latitudes

For the purposes of its study, Manpower interviewed more than 1,000 employers across Canada.

With a net employment forecast of +34%, Canada ranks third among the 41 countries where a similar survey was conducted, behind Panama (+39%) and Costa Rica (+35%).

The United States was ninth with +29%.