A BMO Bank of Montreal report released today finds there is a split between Canadian businesses on their plans to add new employees in 2012.
According to the BMO Hiring Intentions Survey, 55% of business owners in B.C. intend to hire new employees this year.
In addition, for those companies that do say they will be hiring in 2012, overall they plan to do so at a greater rate than last year.
According to the survey, 46% of Canadian businesses plan to hire new employees this year, while slightly more (51%) have no plans to add staff this year.
Cathy Pin, vice-president of commercial banking at BMO, said, “While Canadian companies continue to remain cautiously optimistic in their outlook, we are seeing a willingness to make deliberate and targeted investments to grow their business, including for some the addition of new employees to their workforce.
“With a degree of uncertainty about the global economy still a consideration, many businesses are making these investment choices differently based on the sector they operate in, possibly their physical location, and on their own business plans. Sometimes these will include new hiring and sometimes it will center on other types of growth initiatives.”
The BMO survey also found divergent results depending on the size of company, with 59% of companies with fewer than 10 employees saying they have no plans to hire in 2012, and conversely larger companies (more than 10 employees) indicating that 70% have plans to hire this year.
Intentions were varied across sectors with 57% of mining, oil and gas, construction and manufacturing employers planning to hire in 2012.
By contrast, only 36% of employers in the real estate, retail and wholesale sectors have plans to add employees this year.
Employers in the arts/culture and travel/tourism sectors indicated 49% were intending to hire.
Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, said, “The main drivers in April were the cyclical sectors of construction and manufacturing,” commenting on April employment data from Statistics Canada.
“Transportation, finance, resources and education were also all solid. Most provinces saw gains, led by another comeback month by Quebec and big gains across the three western-most provinces.
“Most impressive are the meaty job gains in the private sector, neatly offsetting the job losses in the public sector last month – hopefully that can continue through the rest of the year,” stated Porter.
