Small businesses across the country still struggling to fill job vacancies

Labour market pressures continue for small business owners in Canada as 290,000 full- and part-time private sector jobs went unfilled in the second quarter, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Alberta accounted for 54,000 unfilled jobs, its quarterly help wanted report, showed. The report, released Thursday is based on the responses of 3,526 small business owners.

“While the overall (job) vacancy rate dropped to 2.4 per cent (from 2.5 per), the problem continues to be most acute for smaller businesses,” said Ted Mallett, CFIB’s chief economist and vice-president. “In fact, those with fewer than four employees saw an increase in their vacancy rate (4.5 per cent), while larger businesses all saw decreases.”

Saskatchewan again had the highest provincial job vacancy rate at 4.1 per cent. Alberta’s rate dipped to 3.4 per cent, from 3.7 per cent in the previous quarter. By sector, personal services (3.9) and construction (3.5) had the country’s greatest needs.

Meanwhile, the number of people receiving regular employment insurance ben- efits in Alberta edged up in June, according to Statistics Canada.

The federal agency reported Thursday that 29,450 people in the province were on EI, up 1,140 or four per cent from the previous month, and an increase of 1,070 or 3.8 per cent from a year ago.

Across Canada, the number of people receiving regular EI benefits in June edged up (4,500 or 0.9 per cent) to 512,300. Year-over-year, it’s down 35,000 people or 6.4 per cent.