Canada added no private sector jobs from 2019 to 2024 — U.S. did the exact opposite
November 6 2026
Re-printed without permission.
By
Emily Renae Kapralik
November 6, 2026 at 12:15 p.m.
Last Updated: November 6, 2026 at 9:59 p.m.
Study by Fraser Institute found Alberta was the only province where government employment didn’t outpace private sector employment
The United States outperformed Canada in adding private sector jobs from 2019 to 2024, according to a new study.
The data comes following news of turmoil in Canada’s economy, such as the Bank of Canada raising its policy rate last month, the unemployment rate jumping to 6.7 per cent in October from 6.5 per cent in September, and losing 4,700 jobs in October per Statistics Canada — all while ongoing trade tensions with the U.S. linger in the background.
According to the Fraser Institute, a Canadian non-partisan think tank, the U.S. added 7.6 private sector jobs per 1,000 working-age people, whereas Canada added none.
Additionally, Canadian provinces performed much worse in private sector job creation than U.S. states.
The study examined whether Canada’s private sector employment growth was keeping up with population growth by comparing Canada’s performance to its closest neighbour.
The strength of private sector employment acts as an indicator of an economy’s capacity to generate sustainable economic growth.
Ben Eisen, the co-author of the study, told National Post that what’s happening to the private sector (in terms of job creation and overall employment growth) can end up getting overlooked when people only see aggregate numbers.
“If you only look at the broad numbers, which includes robust government job growth, you can miss out on a very important story,” Eisen said. “Private sector job creation in most of the country has not been adequate to keep pace with the working age population.”
The study found that within the 2019 and 2024 timeframe, Alberta was the only province where government employment didn’t outpace private sector employment.
B.C. was the province with the largest gap between government and private sector growth, at 26.7 percentage points.
The study also observed how Canadian provinces are faring compared to jurisdictions in the United States that share comparable geography, economic trends and industries.
Ontario had the worst private sector job growth in the Great Lakes region.
The number of private sector jobs in Ontario per 1,000 people fell by approximately 17.8 over the five-year period. Quebec also lost an average of 5.5 private sector jobs during that same period.
B.C. had the worst record throughout the Pacific Northwest, with an average of 35.7 private sector jobs lost.
Alberta performed the worst compared to other energy-producing states, with 8.8 jobs lost per 1,000 people.
Most Atlantic and Maritime provinces lagged behind their U.S. counterparts, except for Newfoundland and Labrador, which added 20.6 private sector jobs per 1,000 working people.
The period of 2019 to 2024 was chosen in order to compare developments over a significant period of time, according to Eisen.
The year 2019 was chosen as a starting point in order to properly analyze data throughout the COVID recession and recovery, and the authors ended the study at the “most recent year of available data.”
Eisen hopes that this study will encourage analysts and the government to make sure they’re paying attention to private sector job growth in the future, and adjust their plans when there is weakness.
“We can’t simply look at headline numbers,” Eisen said, adding that people should pay more attention to the private sector in order to gauge how well the economy is doing.
In the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, the federal government wrote that it created a total of 330,000 jobs over the previous year, which “exceeded expectations of private sector economists.”
Employment increased by 7.4 per cent from 2019 to 2024, which they called the “strongest increase in the G7.”
If private sector job creation in Canada had kept up with the United States since 2019, there would have been 554,000 more private sector jobs in 2024, according to the study.
The study used data acquired from Statistics Canada, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the U.S. Census Bureau to determine its findings.
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