It’s no secret that British Columbia’s economy has been struggling over the past couple of years, with feeble GDP growth, a softening labour market and an ongoing housing supply and affordability crisis. This post provides a summary of key developments in the province’s labour market in 2025.The accompanying tables supply the relevant data. Note that unless otherwise indicated, all of the figures cited refer to annual averages for 2025 or prior years, as estimated by Statistics Canada.
Job creation takes a step back. Last year, the province was home to 2.946 million jobs, up just 1.1% from 2024. Since 2021, employment has risen by a solid 9.8%, with most of the increase coming over 2021-2023. Since 2023, the job market has lost much of its earlier momentum. Figure 1 provides summary data on job creation – economy-wide, and also for construction.
Small employment gains in construction. In 2025, the B.C. construction sector directly supported 262,000 jobs, up from 247,000 in 2024 (Figure 1). Most of the jobs added were in the first half of the year. (As noted, all of the figures cited are annual averages.) The number of construction jobs climbed by approximately 32,000 over the four-year period 2021-2025, a total increase of 13.9%. Looking ahead, ICBA Economics expects a significant drop in employment in the homebuilding and real estate development industries in 2026-27, which will weigh on employment growth in the broader B.C. construction sector.
Figure 1
Full versus part-time work. Full-time jobs are becoming harder to find in B.C. (Table 1). The province had 2.348 million full-time jobs in 2025, along with 598,000 part time positions. Of particular concern, part-time employment accounted for about three-fifths of all net jobs created in 2025. This suggests the “quality” of employment growth has deteriorated.
Table 1
More unemployed people. The number of officially unemployed British Columbians stood at 194,600 last year (Table 2), up from 171,800 in 2024. The measured unemployment rate averaged 6.2% in 2025, compared to 5.6% the year before. In 2022, the unemployment rate averaged 4.6% -- close to a multi-decade low. This partly reflected disruptions stemming from the pandemic along with soaring labour demand as different sectors of the economy fully “re-opened” over the course of 2021-2022. Statistics Canada also calculates unemployment rates for individual industries, including construction. The unemployment rate in the B.C. construction sector averaged 4.0% in 2025, up from the post-pandemic low of 3.7% recorded in 2022. ICBA Economics projects a higher construction industry unemployment rate in 2026 as the ongoing downturn in residential investment spending and real estate development intensifies.
Table 2
Employment trends by industry since 2022. The pattern of job creation/job losses by industry is summarized in Table 3, which covers the three-year period 2022-2025. Since 2022, several B.C. industries have seen outright declines in employment, notwithstanding a steadily expanding population and labour force: agriculture, forestry, utilities, manufacturing, retail trade, and information, culture and recreation. Surprisingly, mining and oil and gas production also experienced a slight dip in employment. Over the same period, small net job gains were recorded in the following B.C. industries: wholesale trade, transportation/warehousing, business and building support services, and accommodation and food services. Finally, a number of industries reported significant net job growth over 2022-2025: finance and insurance, professional/scientific/technical services, education, health care and social assistance, and public administration. Construction saw employment rise by approximately 25,000 between 2022 and 2025. It is worth noting that sectors wholly or mainly funded by government have recorded outsized increases in employment in recent years. That trend is not expected to persist given the dire state of the provincial government’s finances and mounting resistance to further tax hikes among both households and businesses.
Table 3