OTTAWA -- The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says the number of job vacancies dropped slightly during the second quarter, an indication of a weaker labour market.

The group representing small and medium-sized businesses says there were 289,800 unfilled jobs in the private sector during the April-July period, a drop of about 5,000 from the previous quarter.

The estimate is higher than the 225,000 job vacancies reported by Statistics Canada in May, although the two surveys were in agreement that vacancies are dropping.

CFIB chief economist Ted Mallet says the problem appears more acute for small businesses, which have a vacancy rate more than twice that of larger firms.

The CFIB notes that, historically, vacancies fall as the unemployment rate rises.

At 2.4 per cent of the market, the job vacancy rate in the CFIB survey remains higher than levels seen just following the recession, but lower than the 2.8 per cent pre-recession peak in late 2007 and early 2008, when the unemployment rate stood near six per cent.

July saw the jobless rate rise one-tenth of a point to 7.2 per cent as the economy shed 39,000 workers.

The small business lobby group released the survey results in advance of a "Twitter chat" Thursday afternoon with Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney.

During the online event, participants called for better labour market information, improved vocational training to address skilled trades labour shortages and solutions to high youth and Aboriginal unemployment.

The federal government, with support from business groups, has argued Canada faces an imminent labour shortage, requiring changes to employment insurance.

"Acute labour shortages of skilled labour are a real problem in many regions... We need to ensure that Canadians have the skills needed to fill local labour shortages," Kenney tweeted.

"Key problem is the skills mismatch: too many jobs without people and people without jobs."

In the March budget, the government also pledged to create a jobs grant program whereby Ottawa, the provinces and businesses share equally -- up to a total of $15,000 -- in the cost of training a worker for an unfilled job.

The so-called "job grant" has been opposed by some provinces as ill-thought-out and an intrusion on their jurisdiction.

Some participants in the Twitter chat, mainly labour groups, questioned whether there actually is a labour shortage in Canada.

In a statement, the Alberta Federation of Labour said the Twitter forum was meant to perpetuate the "labour shortage myth" and called the exercise a "cheap gimmick aimed at justifying low-wage policies like the expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker program," which enables companies to bring in workers from abroad to fill short-term needs.