The Canadian job market pendulum is swinging back to the employers’ side.

After several years of struggling to find talent post-COVID – and catering to new hires’ and current employees’ compensation expectations to retain that talent – ASI Research shows that distributors’ concerns about finding and retaining workers dropped this year compared with 2024.

It was a similar story with the percentage of distributors who had to raise wages to attract and keep workers, numbers that ticked down between 2023 and 2024. As a result, more distributors say it took longer in 2024 to fill positions than it did in 2023.

Laura Hansen, president of Image Group Inc. (asi/230059) in Vancouver, BC, said her team saves time by using an employment agency to fill open positions. Each of their most recent hires are on work visas, though the government has implemented a three-year cap program to help ease skyrocketing housing costs and increasing strain on the healthcare and social services systems.

“Our concern is that our people may not have their work visas extended or be able to apply for permanent residence,” says Hansen. “In the meantime, we’ve been able to offer the compensation they were asking for, which was reasonable. We pay for basic medical insurance as well as extended benefits.”

Here are key Counselor State of the Industry data for Canada on the country’s labor market.

Click here for a PDF of the below infographic.