The November labour force survey: Tourism HR Canada

The November labour force survey has been released last Friday, following are some preliminary results.

Tourism employment increased in November by 11,200. An increase in tourism employment is highly unusual for this month. The only other time employment increased since 2006 was in 2012, when employment increased by 5,500. Generally, employment falls by roughly 28,000 between October and November.

Employment across the entire economy rose quite significantly—which isn’t necessarily a good thing for the tourism sector as it means much of that employment increase happened in other sectors of the economy. The Canadian economy added 154,000 jobs in November, more than four times what analysts were predicting. The jobless rate fell by 0.7 percentage points, to 6 per cent. It is also common for seasonally unadjusted employment across all industries to decline in November. Since 2006, overall employment has only increased in 2018 and 2017. In 2019, employment fell by 137,400. This year, seasonally unadjusted employment increased by 93,600. When seasonal adjustments are taken into account, employment increase by 154,000.

The employment increases in both tourism and the broader economy were due to large increases in part-time employment. Full-time employment declined. Although employment levels are now well above pre-pandemic levels, it is important to remember that the labour force has also grown. There are more people looking for work than pre-pandemic.

Employment increased in the food and beverage services, transportation and travel services industries. Employment declined slightly in the recreation and entertainment industry and fell significantly (-8.6 per cent) in the accommodation industry.

Data is for the week of November 7 to 13:

For more information on tourism employment trends, check out the Employment Tracker and other tools under the Labour Market Information tab at www.TourismHR.ca