{"id":884552,"date":"2026-09-05T17:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T17:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/884552\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T17:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T17:44:18","slug":"job-hopping-is-paying-off-in-canada-and-more-than-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/884552\/","title":{"rendered":"Job-hopping is paying off in Canada, and more than in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Pedestrians move past 1 Adelaide Street East in Toronto\u2019s Financial District on Tuesday. When job changers are better off than job stayers it usually signals a tight job market, research from Automatic Data Processing shows.Will Cox\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Canadians interested in new jobs are seeing a bigger financial payoff when they move than those who stick in their current roles, despite headwinds in the labour market, according to research from Automatic Data Processing.<\/p>\n

And people switching jobs may see an even bigger pay bump rate than those in the U.S., the ADP report found. <\/p>\n

Those who made the move in this country saw their base pay grow 5.6 per cent year-over-year in August, up from 5 per cent in July, according to research from ADP, a human resources and payroll management company. That compares to just a 3 per cent boost for job stayers \u2013 a number that\u2019s remained flat since December. <\/p>\n

The ADP\u2019s report draws on the anonymized payroll transaction data of approximately 1.6 million Canadian workers each month, through a matched sample over a rolling 12-month period. <\/p>\n

Canadians\u2019 gross pay \u2013 total compensation including extra overtime hours and add-ons such as bonuses and tips \u2013 surged 9.6 per cent while job stayer earnings rose a more modest 4.4 per cent. When job changers are better off than job stayers it usually signals a tight job market.<\/p>\n

The premium for switchers in the U.S., on the other hand, sat at just 2.2 per cent compared to Canada\u2019s 5.2 per cent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve described the U.S. market as \u2018low hire, low fire,\u2019\u201d said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. In Canada, \u201cthere is a benefit still from job switching.\u201d<\/p>\n

In depth: In downtown Toronto, the office is back<\/a><\/p>\n

The data comes against the backdrop of a less-than-ideal outlook for Canada\u2019s job market across the board. Trade<\/a> tensions with the U.S.<\/a> have seen renewed vigour as U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> slapped Canada with a series of sweeping new levies last month and Ottawa fired back with \u201cdollar-for-dollar\u201d tariffs<\/a> of its own.<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada figures released Friday showed that the hot streak in the country\u2019s labour market, which added 181,000 jobs from April through July, came to a screeching halt<\/a>, with more than 40,000 jobs shed in August.<\/p>\n

That said, the unemployment rate held steady at 6.4 per cent last month, and most of the losses were in the public sector. Whereas Statistics Canada\u2019s employment survey captures changes in the overall composition of employment, ADP\u2019s measure follows the same individuals\u2019 pay cheques over time.<\/p>\n

A Canadian worker who already has a strong position should not see the report as a sign to throw caution to the wind, according to Ms. Richardson. But someone considering a switch should be in a better spot if they have the new job already lined up before leaving the old one.<\/p>\n

Momentum has started to pick up in sectors such as hospitality \u2013 a category that includes servers, chefs and hotel receptionists \u2013 along with finance and professional services, such as business consulting, where average base wage growth hovered between 4.6 and 4.8 per cent.<\/p>\n

Those figures would mean a sales associate working in the finance sector and earning $90,032 would get a pay bump of close-to $5,000 in base wages when making a move or a total compensation of around $100,000 if looking at gross pay.<\/p>\n

While the premium may not be where it hovered in 2023, when a worker switching roles could see their gross pay go up 15.8 per cent on average, for example, \u201cyou can still recoup a premium from jobs switching for the typical worker,\u201d Ms. Richardson said.<\/p>\n

The momentum is not evenly distributed, however. ADP found that the first quartile of workers, representing the bottom 25 per cent of earners, had wage growth of just 2.7 per cent in August, compared with 3 per cent for the other 75 per cent. \u201cThere is a gap there between the bottom versus everyone else,\u201d Ms. Richardson said.<\/p>\n

Cory Stahle, senior economist at the employment website Indeed, said the biggest potential lies in a few small pockets of the labour market.<\/p>\n

Indeed data, which tracks public sector jobs as well as private ones, showed Canadian wages in job postings for finance, grew 5.5 per cent in July, as well as 4.1 per cent for physicians and 3.7 per cent in the education sector. Generally, job wage growth hovered at 2.6 per cent year-over-year.<\/p>\n

For people considering a job switch, those pockets should indicate where employers are willing to pay more to attract workers, Mr. Stahle said. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s job market sees sharp decline in \u2018quick quitting\u2019 as new hires opt to stick around<\/a><\/p>\n

Finance job growth hovered at 42 per cent above pre-pandemic hiring levels. For software developers, after seeing major declines in tech demand following the heated job market of the COVID-19 lockdown years, postings have begun to stabilize as well, Mr. Stahle said, while advertised wages were up 4.4 per cent this summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese jobs have been taking a beating for the last couple years,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of hope for job seekers who have been watching the tech sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI job postings<\/a> are also seeing stronger demand and not just where one would expect. AI roles have been embedded into legacy jobs such as real estate agent, with employers in that field looking for someone to take the lead with the emerging technology. <\/p>\n

The job market picking up in certain pockets but remaining lukewarm across the board, could also be an asset for some job seekers, Mr. Stahle said. <\/p>\n

The fact that there\u2019s less competition at a time when wages are showing signs of rising \u201ccould mean that for a job seeker right now that might be the perfect time for you to look.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Pedestrians move past 1 Adelaide Street East in Toronto\u2019s Financial District on Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,2741],"class_list":["post-884552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-pf-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}