AB lost 21K payroll employees since Job Creation Tax Cut

Statistics Canada recently released second quarter data on payroll employment for each of the provinces. The seasonally adjusted data was as of June 2022.

I figured I’d take a look to see how the job situation looks in Alberta.

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

ON	6,418,245
QC	3,773,865
BC	2,319,770
AB	1,944,135
MB	593,145
SK	469,675
NS	412,410
NB	315,795
NL	198,780
PEI	66,995

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

In Q2 2022, there were 1,944,135 payroll employees working in Alberta. The previous quarter, that number was 1,912,625. That’s a 31,510 increase, the fourth largest increase in the country.

	Q1 2022	Q2 2022	Change	% change
ON	6,299,880	6,418,245	118,365	1.88%
QC	3,724,550	3,773,865	49,315	1.32%
BC	2,283,565	2,319,770	36,205	1.59%
AB	1,912,625	1,944,135	31,510	1.65%
NS	400,230	412,410	12,180	3.04%
NL	196,000	198,780	2,780	1.42%
NB	313,100	315,795	2,695	0.86%
MB	591,180	593,145	1,965	0.33%
SK	467,775	469,675	1,900	0.41%
PEI	65,980	66,995	1,015	1.54%

When we look at the increase as a percentage of the first quarter’s job numbers, we see that Alberta actually had the third largest increase, surpassed by only Nova Scotia and Ontario.

Alberta also had the fourth largest increase when we compare to Q2 2021, a year earlier and a year after the province first introduced public health protections related to the pandemic.

	Q2 2021	Q2 2022	Change	% change
ON	5,909,555	6,418,245	508,690	8.61%
QC	3,513,305	3,773,865	260,560	7.42%
BC	2,151,635	2,319,770	168,135	7.81%
AB	1,814,640	1,944,135	129,495	7.14%
MB	569,280	593,145	23,865	4.19%
NS	390,865	412,410	21,545	5.51%
SK	450,550	469,675	19,125	4.24%
NB	303,650	315,795	12,145	4.00%
NL	190,445	198,780	8,335	4.38%
PEI	63,210	66,995	3,785	5.99%

As I said at the outset, this shouldn’t be that surprising, given that we have the fourth largest population in general. Alberta is also in fourth place in terms of percentage change over the last year.

However, things start to look less rosy the further we go back.

Statistics Canada didn’t have stats for the second quarter of 2020, but here are what the numbers look like when compared to the second quarter of 2019, right before the UCP government introduced what they dubbed the “Job Creation Tax Cut”.

	Q2 2019	Q2 2022	Change	% change
QC	3,603,315	3,773,865	170,550	4.73%
ON	6,283,835	6,418,245	134,410	2.14%
BC	2,231,515	2,319,770	88,255	3.95%
NS	397,585	412,410	14,825	3.73%
NB	305,345	315,795	10,450	3.42%
SK	464,810	469,675	4,865	1.05%
MB	589,360	593,145	3,785	0.64%
PEI	63,255	66,995	3,740	5.91%
NL	198,280	198,780	500	0.25%
AB	1,965,220	1,944,135	-21,085	-1.07%

Alberta’s growth in payroll employees since June 2019 was the worst of all the provinces in Canada. In fact, we were the only province in the country to see a loss in payroll employees during that 3-year period, losing over 21,000 workers.

Keep in mind that Alberta’s population increased by 3.6% during the same period. So the picture is even worse. Alberta went from having 45.24% of its population on payroll in Q2 2019 to 43.19% in Q2 2022, a drop of more than 2 full percentage points.

Québec saw an increase in over 170,000 payroll employees during the same period. Ontario also passed the 100,000 mark. And PEI grew their number of payroll employees by nearly 6%.