Immigrants most affected as Quebec boasts 'robust' 2023 job market

A handshake after a job interview. (Credit: fauxels/pexels.com)

Quebec's job market remained relatively "robust" in 2023 despite the economic slowdown, according to data compiled by the Institut du Québec (IDQ).

"On net, 67,000 jobs were created in Quebec [in 2023]," said Emna Braham, director of the IDQ. "We're no longer at the post-pandemic catch-up level, but we're still at a level of job creation that's close to what we experienced before the pandemic, between 2016 and 2019, at times when Quebec's economy was doing well."

Despite high inflation, workers have, on average, maintained their purchasing power, according to the IDQ report -- something Braham says many people wanted to know.

She explains the average hourly wage was $33.02 in December 2023, compared with $31.87 in December 2019 before the pandemic.

"The skyrocketing inflation that we experienced at the end of the pandemic didn't completely eat away the wage gains that workers were able to make," she said.

The year 2023 marked a pause in the creation of "quality jobs," with the majority of new jobs being part-time.

The trend towards creating well-paid jobs, observed in the wake of the pandemic, faded in 2023, the report notes.

The economic slowdown triggered by rising interest rates also led to a reduction in the number of jobs.

The number of vacancies fell from 211,000 to 149,000 in one year.

The unemployment rate also rose slightly, from 4.1 per cent to 4.7 per cent between December 2022 and December 2023.

The situation varies by industry, with the health care and construction sectors still experiencing labour shortages.

In contrast, the finance, insurance and real estate services sector had just 13,000 fewer workers at the end of the year.

The increase in the labour force due to immigration has also helped to alleviate the shortages.

"We see that this labour supply has really increased significantly over the last year, almost 100,000 more people," explains Braham. "It's a growth that has been largely attributable to temporary immigration over the past year."

The economic downturn hit permanent immigrants hardest, with their unemployment rate rising from 4.7 per cent to 7.5 per cent from December 2022 to December 2023.

In contrast, people born in Canada experienced a slight unemployment rate increase from 3.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent.

Nevertheless, the unemployment rate remains relatively low for permanent immigrants compared to ten years ago when it exceeded 10 per cent -- but the trend remains "worrying," according to Braham.

"What's worrying is that the gap in unemployment rates was narrowing between immigrants and people born in Canada in recent years," she said. "But now, we see that only the unemployment rate of permanent immigrants has increased."

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Feb. 7, 2024.