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Canadian companies report optimistic 2025 hiring outlook
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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While much of the news is focused on the high cost of living and economic uncertainty, new research from Harris-Poll suggests Canadian companies are entering 2025 with a positive hiring outlook, with more intending to hire than at any point in the past five years.
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According to this research, commissioned by Express Employment Professions, almost three-quarters of companies (71%) feel positive about their hiring outlook over the coming year, with 39% feeling optimistic, 36% feeling confident, and 35% feeling hopeful. This is in line with the first half of 2024, when 70% of companies felt positive about their hiring outlook.
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In addition, half of Canadian companies (51%) report plans to increase their employee count in the first half of 2025, while 41% plan to keep their headcount the same, and only 8% plan to decrease their workforce. This is also very similar to the first half of 2024 (49% planned to increase their employee count).
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The primary drivers for increasing headcount include managing increased volumes of work (58%), filling newly created positions (45%), addressing employee turnover (38%), getting expertise in new areas (26%), and handling expansion into other categories or markets (26%).
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Interestingly, while these drivers remain similar to last year, there has been a significant rise in the number of companies who are increasing their employee count to manage work caused by artificial intelligence (AI) concerns, from 10% in the first half of 2024 to 18% now.
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Optimism Balanced with Persistent Challenges
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“There is a lot of optimism in the market going into 2025,” according to Brent Pollington, an Express franchise owner in Vancouver, British Columbia. “The positive outlook seems to stem from a combination of factors including market conditions, perceptions of continued growth, and the potential for lowering interest rates, among other things.”
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While businesses are optimistic, Pollington points out they are still facing persistent hiring challenges, particularly increased costs of hiring and skills shortages.
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“The cost per employee for businesses has drastically increased,” said Pollington. “Worker expectations, market factors, minimum wage hikes, increased demands for benefits and perks, retention strategies, turnover costs, and the time and resources needed to train new employees have all driven these costs higher.”
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“Companies are also dealing with the lack of skilled workers in the market which has forced them to focus more on training and development, as well as long-term succession planning,” Pollington added. “Employers are spending significant time and energy solving these issues.”
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So what does a job developer or employer engagement specialist do when the employers they are dealing with are hesitant to hire? To begin with, I would suggest sharing this research with employers so they are getting a wider look at the job market then just their own organization.
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For a long time, I've advocated there should be some sort of communication piece where you are sharing new human resources and employment data with local employers, updating them on new research from the provincial chambers of commerce, your own board of trade, business improvement organization and other pro-business groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
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Perhaps once a month, you are sharing an email newsletter for local employers where you have a feature story, but also include a generic list of clients you are working with which simply states the skill set individuals have, without any identifiable personal information.
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For those who believe newsletters are old-school (and I can't say that doesn't hurt a little bit) you can share this information on social media. Perhaps you can start a local employers group on LinkedIn and invite local employers to participate in it. You can use this as a platform to share information like this.
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One of the elements that will most distinguish you as an employment expert is your subject matter expertise. Whether you use a newsletter or social media, if you are continually sharing research and information designed for local employers, you will gain credibility with employers in your community.
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This is a valuable opportunity to differentiate yourself as an advocate of job seekers to being an advocate for addressing the needs of local employers.
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We’ll be discussing the best approach for sharing employer-specific LMI at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday Jan. 6th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday January 6th, 'Click this Link' to join the session LIVE.
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