AB saw worst payroll employee growth under Job Creation Tax Cut

Last week, Statistics Canada released updated data on employment and average weekly earnings for each of the provinces. The new seasonally adjusted data was as of August 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 August, in that this specifically reports on workers who are on payroll.

ON	6,813,281
QC	3,956,176
BC	2,484,291
AB	2,052,589
MB	630,041
SK	494,131
NS	437,736
NB	343,589
NL	219,523
PEI	75,263

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

In August 2022, there were 2,052,589 payroll employees working in Alberta. The month before, that number was 2,049,116. That’s a 3,473 increase, the second largest increase in the country.

	Jul 2022	Aug 2022	Change	% change
BC	2,476,220	2,484,291	8,071	0.33%
AB	2,049,116	2,052,589	3,473	0.17%
MB	627,285	630,041	2,756	0.44%
NS	435,645	437,736	2,091	0.48%
SK	492,310	494,131	1,821	0.37%
NL	218,561	219,523	962	0.44%
NB	343,080	343,589	509	0.15%
PEI	75,135	75,263	128	0.17%
ON	6,827,068	6,813,281	-13,787	-0.20%
QC	3,984,300	3,956,176	-28,124	-0.71%

When we look at the increase as a percentage of July’s job numbers, we see that Alberta drops down to 7th place, however, surpassed by every other province, except for New Brunswick, Ontario, and Québec.

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

	Aug 2021	Aug 2022	Change	% change
ON	6,439,011	6,813,281	374,270	5.81%
BC	2,319,910	2,484,291	164,381	7.09%
QC	3,813,532	3,956,176	142,644	3.74%
AB	1,942,253	2,052,589	110,336	5.68%
MB	604,168	630,041	25,873	4.28%
NS	418,795	437,736	18,941	4.52%
SK	475,537	494,131	18,594	3.91%
NB	329,101	343,589	14,488	4.40%
NL	211,080	219,523	8,443	4.00%
PEI	68,151	75,263	7,112	10.44%

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.

Here’s what job numbers look like when we compare August 2022 to August 2020, five months into the pandemic.

	Aug 2020	Aug 2022	Change	% change
ON	5,943,249	6,813,281	870,032	14.64%
QC	3,549,990	3,956,176	406,186	11.44%
BC	2,122,772	2,484,291	361,519	17.03%
AB	1,798,491	2,052,589	254,098	14.13%
MB	570,887	630,041	59,154	10.36%
SK	445,952	494,131	48,179	10.80%
NS	392,339	437,736	45,397	11.57%
NB	308,267	343,589	35,322	11.46%
NL	198,455	219,523	21,068	10.62%
PEI	62,892	75,263	12,371	19.67%

Alberta has seen the fourth largest increase in total jobs over the last two years, as well as relative to the number of jobs they had in August 2020.

But look how bad things are if we go 3 years out, to August 2019, two months month after the UCP cut the corporate profit tax, what they called a “Job Creation Tax Cut”.

	Aug 2019	Aug 2022	Change	% change
ON	6,646,974	6,813,281	166,307	2.50%
QC	3,807,663	3,956,176	148,513	3.90%
BC	2,354,041	2,484,291	130,250	5.53%
NB	325,892	343,589	17,697	5.43%
AB	2,035,033	2,052,589	17,556	0.86%
MB	614,810	630,041	15,231	2.48%
NS	423,739	437,736	13,997	3.30%
SK	483,431	494,131	10,700	2.21%
PEI	69,618	75,263	5,645	8.11%
NL	217,384	219,523	2,139	0.98%

Alberta’s growth in payroll employees since August 2019 was the 5th highest of all the provinces in Canada. However, relative to where we were in June 2019, Alberta has seen the worst job creation record of all the provinces, with an increase of only 0.86%.

Keep in mind that Alberta’s population increased by 4.1% during the same period. So the province’s population growth was nearly 5 times faster than its payroll employee growth.

No other province saw such a small increase, in percentages. The next lowest increase—Newfoundland and Labrador, at 0.98%—was pretty close, but the next smallest was Saskatchewan, at 2.21%, which was 2.5 times larger than Alberta’s.

Ontario saw an increase in over 166,000 payroll employees during the same period, nearly 10 times what Alberta saw. BC and Québec both passed the 100,000 mark. And PEI grew their number of payroll employees by 8.11%.

Here’s how the jobs in Alberta have changed over the last 3 years, by industry.

	Aug 2019	Aug 2022	Change	% change
Health care & social assistance	218,904	233,783	14,879	6.80%
Professional, scientific & technical services	119,261	130,246	10,985	9.21%
Finance and insurance	63,640	68,778	5,138	8.07%
Utilities	13,861	17,697	3,836	27.67%
Retail trade	246,589	249,985	3,396	1.38%
Transportation & warehousing	106,863	109,891	3,028	2.83%
Construction	173,511	176,002	2,491	1.44%
Forestry, logging & support	3,867	3,932	65	1.68%
Arts, entertainment & recreation	39,391	38,761	-630	-1.60%
Information & cultural industries	27,907	26,721	-1,186	-4.25%
Wholesale trade	98,663	97,191	-1,472	-1.49%
Management of companies & enterprises	19,528	17,531	-1,997	-10.23%
Public administration	109,710	107,615	-2,095	-1.91%
Manufacturing	123,647	121,322	-2,325	-1.88%
Mining, quarrying, and oil & gas extraction	101,683	98,515	-3,168	-3.12%
Real estate & rental and leasing	43,073	38,975	-4,098	-9.51%
Other services (except public administration)	76,862	72,643	-4,219	-5.49%
Educational services	153,930	148,805	-5,125	-3.33%
Administrative & support, waste management & remediation services	97,076	90,285	-6,791	-7.00%
Accommodation and food services	166,181	158,698	-7,483	-4.50%

Only 8 out of 20 total industries have seen a net increase in payroll employees over the last 3 years. The other 12 all saw losses, the largest of which was in the hospitality sector, which lost nearly 7,500 payroll employees.

And that’s despite having a job vacancy rate less than the national rate.

The job vacancy rate is the number of job vacancies expressed as a percentage of labour demand.

NL	3.6
NS	4.8
MB	4.8
NB	4.9
SK	4.9
AB	5.0
ON	5.1
QC	5.9
BC	6.1
PEI	6.9

And, as you can see from the above table, Alberta had the fifth lowest job vacancy rate in Canada this past August. The national rate was 5.4%.

You’d think that a province with such a low vacancy rate wouldn’t have so many jobs still missing.

In fact, according to Statistics Canada, Alberta still has 106,215 payroll employee vacancies. Seems weird that we increased our payroll workforce by less than one percent over the last 3 years.