Alberta’s jobless-per-vacancy ratio drops from 3.9 to 2.8

Alberta had 2.8 unemployed people for every job vacancy in August, down from 3.9 a year earlier, the sharpest improvement of any province, according to Statistics Canada data released Oct. 29.

The agency’s job vacancy release put the national ratio at 2.9 unemployed people per vacancy, down from 3.3 in August 2025. It said the ratio fell in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and that Saskatchewan was the only province where it rose. Canada News Media took the underlying provincial tables and calculated the ratio for every province the agency covers, which shows how uneven the competition for work remains.

By that calculation, Newfoundland and Labrador had the most crowded market in August at about 5.4 unemployed people per vacancy, followed by New Brunswick at 3.8 and Ontario at 3.6. Manitoba had the least pressure at 1.9, followed by Quebec at 2.3 and Nova Scotia at 2.4. A job seeker in Ontario faced nearly twice the competition for each opening as one in Manitoba.

The Alberta improvement came from both sides of the ratio. Unemployment in the province fell to 194,300 from 228,500, a drop of 15 per cent, while job vacancies rose to 69,600 from 58,165, an increase of 19.7 per cent. Statistics Canada reported the same vacancy gain for Alberta, and said Manitoba (up 27.1 per cent) and Quebec (up 9.3 per cent) also posted year-over-year increases.

Manitoba’s ratio fell from 2.8 to 1.9 because vacancies climbed to 20,635 from 16,240 while the number of unemployed dropped to 39,600 from 45,700. In Ontario, the story is different. Vacancies were almost flat at 171,385, up 0.9 per cent, and the ratio improved mainly because unemployment fell by about 75,000, to 610,900. In Quebec, a rise in vacancies to 119,425 and a decline in unemployment to 272,700 both helped.

Saskatchewan moved the other way. The number of unemployed people rose about 26 per cent, to 39,400 from 31,300, while vacancies rose 4.6 per cent to 16,095. That pushed its ratio up from 2.0 to 2.4, which Statistics Canada flagged as the only provincial increase.

Two other provinces edged up in our calculation but were not singled out by the agency, which focuses on changes that are statistically significant. New Brunswick’s ratio rose from 3.3 to 3.8 as vacancies fell 14.8 per cent, to 8,555, the agency’s own figure. British Columbia’s moved from 2.5 to 2.6, with vacancies essentially unchanged at about 78,400 and unemployment up three per cent. Those shifts should be read with caution.

The figures carry limits. The unemployment counts come from the Labour Force Survey, a household survey with sampling error that is larger in smaller provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador, and the monthly vacancy estimates are preliminary and are revised when quarterly data arrive. A ratio is also not the same as the number of jobs a given worker can actually take, since vacancies are concentrated in particular industries and occupations. Statistics Canada said accommodation and food services, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing had the largest year-over-year gains in vacancies nationally.

For workers, the practical meaning is that competition for each opening has eased nationally over the past year, but not evenly. In Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Ontario, unemployed people are still competing for far fewer openings than in Manitoba, Quebec or Alberta. Our earlier coverage of the same release found that payroll employment fell 49,600 in August, with federal census hiring distorting the figure, while vacancies held at about 507,200 nationally. We have also reported on average weekly earnings by province and on Ontario’s employment insurance rolls.

How we did this: we downloaded Statistics Canada’s job vacancy table (14-10-0432-01) and Labour Force Survey table (14-10-0287-01) on Oct. 29, 2026, used seasonally adjusted figures for total unemployed people aged 15 and older and for total job vacancies in August 2025 and August 2026, and divided unemployment by vacancies for each province. Our figures match the agency’s published ratios for Canada, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. Prince Edward Island is excluded because the August 2026 vacancy estimate was not published. Percentage changes are our own calculations from the published levels.

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