Highlights
- Unemployment in the Québec City census metropolitan area (CMA) held steady at 4% in July, the second-lowest rate in Canada.
- The region had a total of 446,300 jobs last month, up 9,600 from July 2014.
- Québec City maintained its positive year-over-year job creation record despite losing 600 positions since June 2015.
- Across the province of Québec, the labour market gained 21,700 jobs from June to July as unemployment dipped 0.3 points to 7.7%.
Commentary
Québec City's labour market continues to draw headlines. In July, regional unemployment stood at 4% (unchanged from June), the second-lowest rate in Canada. The region posted a total of 446,300 jobs, up 9,600 from the same period last year. As a result, Québec City is positioned as one of the main job creation centres in Québec and in the rest of Canada.
The gradual rollout of major projects and the increase in manufacturing orders continued to bring new opportunities for construction and manufacturing jobseekers. July trends were mixed in the services sector due to shakeups in a number of its components. Nevertheless, the combined impact of these factors led to a higher demand for labour in the Québec City region and thus to low unemployment rates in all age groups. According to Statistics Canada's non-seasonally adjusted data, unemployment stood at 3.6% in July 2015 among 25-to-54 year-olds, down from 4.1% one year ago. Among 15-to-24 year-olds, this drop was even more pronounced as the rate plummeted from 13.1% to 6.4% over the past 12 months.
Thanks to economic diversification, the Québec City CMA still has a robust labour market. However, amid record-setting employment and unemployment rates, not to mention slow workforce growth, certain adjustments could be just around the corner, as evidenced by the monthly downtick in July (600 fewer jobs than in June), which brought a five-month unbroken stretch of increases to an end.
Louis Gagnon
Senior Economist
Québec International
