The number of job vacancies in Alberta increased by 3,800, or 7.3 per cent, from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018, according to Statistics Canada.

The federal agency reported on Monday that the growth was driven by the administrative and support services, and transportation and warehousing sectors.

“There was also a notable decline in the number of job vacancies in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector. Over this period, the job vacancy rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 2.7 per cent in the fourth quarter, the fourth lowest rate among the provinces. In addition, the offered hourly wage rose by $1.20 (+5.4 per cent) to $23.25, the highest offered hourly wage among the provinces,” it said.

The job vacancy rate represents the number of job vacancies expressed as a percentage of labour demand – that is, the sum of all occupied and vacant jobs.

In Canada, the number of job vacancies increased by 78,000 (+16.6 per cent) from the fourth quarter of 2017 to 548,000 in the fourth quarter. At the same time, the job vacancy rate was up 0.4 percentage points to 3.3 per cent, the third successive quarter above three per cent. This was also the ninth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase in both the number of job vacancies and the job vacancy rate.

“The number of job vacancies in Canada (unadjusted for seasonality) was little changed from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2018. Similarly, vacancies were also little changed from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2017, while they declined from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2016,” said StatsCan.

Mario Toneguzzi is a Troy Media business reporter based in Calgary.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.