The job numbers we got from Statistics Canada on Friday can be quite volatile on a month-over-month basis, so it’s helpful to look at what industries are leading job growth so far this year.

The average number of jobs in Alberta over the first eight months of 2024 was 3.0% higher than over the same period in 2023. This works out to about 74,500 more jobs on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.

Breaking down the increase by industry, we find that the forestry, mining and oil and gas sector (mostly oil and gas in Alberta) added the most jobs at +18,000, or about a quarter of the total YTD increase.

As we noted on Friday, employment in the sector has not returned to its 2014 zenith, but is at the highest level since 2015 with rising production and relatively strong oil prices no doubt supporting the employment growth.|

When it comes to the province’s agricultural resources, however, the number of jobs in the primary agriculture sector (which does not include food and beverage manufacturing such as meat packing, oil seed processing and frozen food processing) was down by almost 9,500 YTD or about a fifth of its workforce.

The professional, scientific and technical services sector (which includes everything from legal and accounting services to software design and public relations) posted the largest absolute YTD decline of any sector, down 10,700 jobs or 4.4% compared to last year. This comes after leading annual employment growth in 2023 when the sector added over 22,000 jobs.

The only sector other than primary agriculture and professional, scientific and technical services to post a YTD decline was wholesale and retail trade. The sector was down almost 9,000 jobs during the first two-thirds of the year or 2.4% lower where things stood over the same period in 2023.

Out of the 16 main industry categories tracked by Statistics Canada, YTD employment was higher in 13 (see the chart below). After adding 45,000 jobs between them in 2023, transportation and warehousing, health care and social assistance, and manufacturing have posted more modest numbers so far in 2024 but are still on track to add around 35,000 positions by the end of the year.

Answer to the previous trivia question: The name “canola” comes from can as in Canada and ola as in oil.

Today’s trivia question: How many acres of wheat can a John Deere X9 series combine harvest in an hour?