AB lost 1,500 payroll employees in Oct 2023

Statistics Canada recently released data on payroll employment for each of the provinces. The seasonally adjusted data was as of October 2023.

This data is different from the labour force data I reported on for October, in that this specifically reports on workers who are on payroll.

In particular, it includes full-time employees, part-time employees, as well as permanent, casual, temporary, and seasonal employees. It also includes working owners, directors, partners, and other officers of incorporated businesses, as well as employees who work at home or on the road but report to the location.

However, what it doesn’t include are owners or partners of unincorporated businesses and professional practices, the self-employed, subcontractors, external consultants, unpaid family workers, persons working outside Canada, and military personnel, as well as employees on unpaid leave, such as those on extended sick leave who are receiving insurance benefits.

I figured I’d take a look to see how the job situation looks in each province for October 2023.

ON	6,981,948
QC	4,064,618
BC	2,544,277
AB	2,123,418
MB	641,230
SK	508,338
NS	453,076
NB	354,172
NL	221,179
PEI	77,387

Unsurprisingly, Alberta had the fourth largest number of payroll employees in Canada. After all, they do have the fourth largest population in general.

In October 2023, there were 2,123,418 payroll employees working in Alberta. The month before, that number was 2,124,879. That’s a 1,461 decrease, the fourth largest decrease in the country.

	Sep 2023	Oct 2023	Change	% change
QC	4,061,253	4,064,618	3,365	0.08%
NS	449,810	453,076	3,266	0.73%
NB	352,127	354,172	2,045	0.58%
SK	507,415	508,338	923	0.18%
PEI	78,056	77,387	-669	-0.86%
NL	222,365	221,179	-1,186	-0.53%
AB	2,124,879	2,123,418	-1,461	-0.07%
MB	643,828	641,230	-2,598	-0.40%
BC	2,552,919	2,544,277	-8,642	-0.34%
ON	7,022,105	6,981,948	-40,157	-0.57%

Alberta was 1 of 6 provinces to see an decrease in the number of payroll employees between September and October. Ontario, which lost over 40,000 payroll employees, saw the largest decrease.

When we look at the increase as a percentage of the August job numbers, we see that Alberta still had the smallest decrease.

Alberta had the second largest increase when we compare to October 2022, a year earlier and about 2.5 years after the province first introduced public health protections related to the pandemic.

	Oct 2022	Oct 2023	Change	% change
ON	6,864,395	6,981,948	117,553	1.71%
AB	2,055,978	2,123,418	67,440	3.28%
BC	2,481,045	2,544,277	63,232	2.55%
QC	4,010,472	4,064,618	54,146	1.35%
NS	438,215	453,076	14,861	3.39%
SK	497,076	508,338	11,262	2.27%
MB	631,613	641,230	9,617	1.52%
NB	347,632	354,172	6,540	1.88%
NL	218,414	221,179	2,765	1.27%
PEI	74,889	77,387	2,498	3.34%

Alberta drops to third place, however, in terms of percentage change over that year.

Here is what things look like going back to October 2021, two years prior and a year and a half into the pandemic.

	Oct 2021	Oct 2023	Change	% change
ON	6,531,367	6,981,948	450,581	6.90%
QC	3,863,076	4,064,618	201,542	5.22%
BC	2,359,764	2,544,277	184,513	7.82%
AB	1,950,251	2,123,418	173,167	8.88%
NS	422,321	453,076	30,755	7.28%
MB	611,362	641,230	29,868	4.89%
SK	484,988	508,338	23,350	4.81%
NB	333,519	354,172	20,653	6.19%
NL	210,192	221,179	10,987	5.23%
PEI	70,664	77,387	6,723	9.51%

Alberta had the fourth largest increase in payroll employment. If we look at the percentage-based increase, however, Alberta saw the second largest increase.

Not much changes when compare the numbers to October 2020, 7 months after the government introduced public health protections related to the pandemic.

	Oct 2020	Oct 2023	Change	% change
ON	6,173,485	6,981,948	808,463	13.10%
QC	3,660,798	4,064,618	403,820	11.03%
BC	2,206,001	2,544,277	338,276	15.33%
AB	1,842,233	2,123,418	281,185	15.26%
SK	457,617	508,338	50,721	11.08%
MB	590,855	641,230	50,375	8.53%
NS	405,851	453,076	47,225	11.64%
NB	321,798	354,172	32,374	10.06%
NL	203,740	221,179	17,439	8.56%
PEI	66,489	77,387	10,898	16.39%

Alberta’s growth in payroll employees since October 2020 was still the fourth best of all the provinces in Canada, in total numbers. On a percentage basis, Alberta actually was in second place amongst all provinces, coming in at 15.26%, barely behind British Columbia.

Ontario saw an increase in over 800,000 payroll employees during the same period.

Next, let’s compare this year’s first quarter numbers to October 2019, 6 months after the UCP won their first provincial election and 4 months after they implemented the so-called Job Creation Tax Cut.

	Oct 2019	Oct 2023	Change	% change
ON	6,631,926	6,981,948	350,022	5.28%
QC	3,841,073	4,064,618	223,545	5.82%
BC	2,356,195	2,544,277	188,082	7.98%
AB	2,026,633	2,123,418	96,785	4.78%
NS	425,364	453,076	27,712	6.51%
NB	326,609	354,172	27,563	8.44%
SK	480,945	508,338	27,393	5.70%
MB	620,413	641,230	20,817	3.36%
PEI	70,210	77,387	7,177	10.22%
NL	219,436	221,179	1,743	0.79%

Once again, Alberta saw the fourth largest increase in absolute numbers, but this time their percentage increase dropped dramatically to 8th place, at just 4.78%.

Even though Alberta had the 4th highest absolute numbers, they were a distant fourth. BC, which was in third place increased their payroll employee count by nearly double what Alberta did. Ontario’s was more than triple.

Finally, let’s look at the 5-year trend, going back to October 2018, the last October under the NDP government.

	Oct 2018	Oct 2023	Change	% change
ON	6,548,643	6,981,948	433,305	6.62%
QC	3,740,628	4,064,618	323,990	8.66%
BC	2,307,364	2,544,277	236,913	10.27%
AB	2,014,528	2,123,418	108,890	5.41%
NS	413,316	453,076	39,760	9.62%
NB	321,848	354,172	32,324	10.04%
SK	476,783	508,338	31,555	6.62%
MB	620,967	641,230	20,263	3.26%
PEI	67,146	77,387	10,241	15.25%
NL	215,480	221,179	5,699	2.64%

Alberta still saw the fourth highest increase in total numbers of payroll employees, but they were stuck in third-from-the-bottom again for percentage growth, at only 5.41%.

Keep in mind that Alberta’s population increased by 9.4% during the same period—or rather between September 2018 and September 2023—which means the growth in payroll jobs we did see wasn’t even enough to give jobs to the people who were moving to the province, let alone those who were already here and were still unemployed.

PEI saw the largest increase in percentage growth, at 15.25%.

On that note, PEI’s corporate tax rate is 16%. Despite having a corporate income tax rate that is twice as high as Alberta’s, PEI was able to grow their payroll employees by almost 3 times more than Alberta could.

Maybe how low a tax on corporate profits is actually has no bearing on job growth.

Finally, here’s a look at the monthly growth in payroll employees for Alberta since October 2018.

While it might seem impressive on the surface that Alberta saw an increase of 281,185 payroll employees over the last 3 years, it looks like most of that was recovery from the pandemic.

In fact, as I pointed out earlier, over the last 4 years, from 5 months before the pandemic was starting, Alberta saw an increase of just 96,785 payroll employees. That means that of the 281,185 additional payroll employees we’ve seen since October 2020, 184,400 are likely exclusively recovery positions. That works out to about 65.58%.

Not only that, but between October 2019 and February 2020, Alberta had lost 9,339 payroll employees, so we were already on a decline before the pandemic hit.

And it wasn’t even until last April—over 3 years—that we finally passed the number of payroll employees we had in April 2019.

Oh, and one more thing. In October 2018, Alberta accounted for 12.00% of all payroll employees in Canada. Five years later, our share has decreased to 11.77%.