Earlier this month, I wrote a story about Statistics Canada’s Labour Market Statistics for May 2024. In it, I focused on Alberta’s statistics.
One of the key findings from my article was that Alberta lost over 33,000 full-time jobs. Paart-time jobs, on the other hand, increased by 12,700.
The loss in full-time jobs was the largest loss since September 2023 and the second largest since April 2020.
I decided to go back 5 years to see how much full-time jobs had changed, and to avoid the volatility introduced into the stats by the early months of the pandemic.
In June 2019, the month before the Job Creation Tax Cut came into effect, there were 1,886,700 people working full-time. Last month, there were 2,034,500. That means that there are 147,800 more full-time jobs than there were before the UCP cut the tax on corporate profits.
So, even though we saw a huge drop last month in full-time workers, we’re still nearly 150,000 more than where we were at 5 years ago.
However, Alberta’s population has also increased during that time, so it’s important to also review full-time jobs as a proportion of the workforce.
In June 2019, full-time jobs made up 82.50% of all jobs in the province. Last month, they were at 80.8%. While we do have far more people working full-time than we did 5 years ago, the percentage of all people working who are employed full-time actually decreased during that period.
So, now I was curious how things looked for part-time workers, and also how Alberta compared to the rest of the provinces.
First, here is a look at the number of part-time workers in each province last month.
| ON | 1,450,600 |
| QC | 858,800 |
| BC | 574,700 |
| AB | 482,600 |
| MB | 134,200 |
| SK | 106,500 |
| NS | 89,400 |
| NB | 60,300 |
| NL | 33,500 |
| PEI | 12,300 |
With 482,600 part-time workers, Alberta had the fourth-largest number of workers, which I don’t find all that surprising, given that Alberta has the 4th largest population in the country.
Now, let’s compare these numbers to the total workforce in each province.
| Total | PT | % PT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BC | 2,863,300 | 574,700 | 20.07% |
| AB | 2,517,100 | 482,600 | 19.17% |
| QC | 4,532,300 | 858,800 | 18.95% |
| MB | 711,100 | 134,200 | 18.87% |
| ON | 8,045,000 | 1,450,600 | 18.03% |
| SK | 603,600 | 106,500 | 17.64% |
| NS | 514,600 | 89,400 | 17.37% |
| NB | 397,400 | 60,300 | 15.17% |
| NL | 242,000 | 33,500 | 13.84% |
| PEI | 91,500 | 12,300 | 13.44% |
This time, Alberta jumps up to 2nd place, with 19.17% of all their workers being employed part-time.
Next, we’ll take a look at May 2019.
| Total | PT | % PT | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BC | 2,697,500 | 583,500 | 21.63% |
| MB | 662,900 | 132,800 | 20.03% |
| QC | 4,323,000 | 830,900 | 19.22% |
| NS | 466,200 | 88,300 | 18.94% |
| AB | 2,307,300 | 433,600 | 18.79% |
| ON | 7,427,200 | 1,386,100 | 18.66% |
| SK | 575,200 | 102,700 | 17.85% |
| NB | 364,600 | 56,600 | 15.52% |
| PEI | 79,000 | 11,700 | 14.81% |
| NL | 229,500 | 33,500 | 14.60% |
Well, that’s interesting. Alberta was only in 5th place back in 2019. So, in the last 5 years, Alberta has risen 3 spots in the percentage of workers employed in part-time jobs.
Finally, let’s compare the percentages in 2019 and 2024.
| % PT May 2024 | % PT May 2019 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AB | 19.17% | 18.79% | 0.38% |
| SK | 17.64% | 17.85% | -0.21% |
| QC | 18.95% | 19.22% | -0.27% |
| NB | 15.17% | 15.52% | -0.35% |
| ON | 18.03% | 18.66% | -0.63% |
| NL | 13.84% | 14.60% | -0.75% |
| MB | 18.87% | 20.03% | -1.16% |
| PEI | 13.44% | 14.81% | -1.37% |
| BC | 20.07% | 21.63% | -1.56% |
| NS | 17.37% | 18.94% | -1.57% |
In both years, British Columbia employed a higher percentage of its workers in part-time jobs than any other province. However, over the last 5 years, that percentage has dropped.
In fact, the percentage of workers employed in part-time jobs has dropped between May 2019 and May 2024 in every province but one: Alberta.
Alberta has been the only province to actually see an increase in the percentage of their workers employed in part-time jobs during that time. If this trend continues, we may see Alberta unseat BC as having the largest percentage of part-time workers.
This must be the Alberta Advantage everyone keeps talking about.
