Dec 29, 2021

2021 Job Search Trends Summary

It’s almost the end of yet another year where we’ve seen some major changes across the hiring and job searching landscape. There are no pulling punches when it comes to the fact that the pandemic has been the main factor driving the change in the Canadian job market in 2021.

Back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic and job market crisis, nearly 3 million Canadians were out of a job! Job searching was at an all-time high, and job seekers were flooding the market in 2020, but then came the “great resignation” in 2021 and suddenly we were in a candidate’s market. In today’s highly competitive market to find the best candidates, companies were scrambling to prioritize employee engagement and retention.

Job search trends 2021 in Canada

Let’s look back and summarize the job search trends of 2021 and talk a little more about what job searching looks like in Canada and in Vancouver specifically.

The pandemic exposed cracks in in existing structures and accelerated changes toward what was earlier referred to as “the future of workspace”. Remote hiring has become the norm and we don’t see it changing back anytime soon, if ever! The job market crisis also paved the way for a huge shift to e-commerce and increased demand for the delivery goods in 2021, which has since led to an increased interest in warehouse worker and development engineer jobs. This increased demand has highlighted the fact that companies need help ramping up their e-commerce capabilities, as well as debugging and troubleshooting their existing platforms.

The lockdown and reduced social gatherings have led Canadians to spend more time online, which has shown an upward trend in Software Engineering jobs. Job seekers in Vancouver especially have been seeking out technical roles like Full-Stack Developer or Data Scientist. The demand for workers in essential services like retail, customer service, warehouses and Information Technology all look ready to skyrocket well into 2022 as well.

Here are the topmost in-demand jobs in Canada currently:

1. Customer Service

There are over 9000 open Customer Service positions in British Columbia and over 37,000 positions open across Canada currently. Many companies have closed or minimized their storefront operations and have moved to virtual operations, but customer service representations are still very much in demand.

2. Cyber Security Architects and Analysts

Remember earlier this year when Slack was down which resulted in several organizations losing their ability to communicate and plan work virtually? No matter what you do online, our actions need to be encrypted for safety and this is where Cybersecurity professionals come in. The total number of cybersecurity roles in Canada have grown by 8% in 2021 and Vancouver has one of the highest demand areas for this role.

3. Delivery Drivers

Restaurants and grocery stores have also had to take their businesses online to adapt to the social distancing rules. This has resulted in a huge demand for delivery drivers and there are nearly 6000 positions open in Canada across Ontario and BC currently.

4. Administrative Assistants/Office Managers

Administrative Assistants and Office Managers have been God sent in helping make the transition to a virtual environment a lot easier across organizations. Health& Safety, legal, HR, marketing and accounting departments have been extremely busy during the virtual transition and most companies had to hire assistants and office managers for these departments due to the high volume of work. There are over 5000 Administrative Assistant positions open across Canada, with BC leading the charge.

5. Registered Nurses

Need we elaborate? Nurses have been nothing short of heroic during this pandemic, and healthcare facilities have been struggling to keep their shifts staffed properly. Currently there are over 8000 positions open for nurses across Canada and this is one of the only positions which is listed as one of the most in-demand positions in all the provinces.

6. Supply Chain and Procurement Professionals

The retail sector is thriving and there is a large and urgent demand for Supply Chain and Procurement specialists to help keep the shelves well stocked. Anyone with experience managing a supply chain and ability to network with distributors are much sought after right now with over 1500 vacancies to fill across Canada.

7. IT Support and Help Desk

Now that everyone has gone virtual, hardware, VPNs, and anything to do with keeping a virtual office running smoothly and without incident are at the hands of IT Support. Let’s not forget the Developers and System Engineers who build those virtual tools! There are over 6000 IT Support positions across Canada with the demand for this role spiking every quarter.

8. Maintenance Workers

The healthcare guidelines keep changing constantly, and the only way to keep up with the rising demand to help sanitize and clean is to hire more maintenance workers. There are almost 12,000 open positions for Cleaners and Maintenance Workers in Canada, and it is the second-most in demand role in the country.

The fastest growing industries in Canada are those that thought ahead and adapted to the changed brought on by the pandemic. The following sectors have not only grown leaps and bounds in the year 2021, but they have also been predicted to grow further well into the next year as well.

1. Health Care
2. Supply Chain Logistics
3. Security
4. E-Commerce
5. Construction and Storage

The work culture has evolved and will continue to do so well into 2022. There is still work to be done and a lot of the old mentalities are still a work in progress that needs changing. The heavy reliance on virtual workplaces will only continue to evolve and gig economy where the tactical use of digital skills has given rise to a demand in hiring freelancers. The unemployment rate is down by 6% and there are over 7,00,000 job vacancies in Canada currently. Despite the economy taking a hit due to the pandemic, we have slowly but surely turned things around in 2021 and things are looking better than ever for the job market in 2022.