{"id":79557,"date":"2026-10-14T15:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/10\/14\/employment-anxiety-among-canadians-is-highest-in-the-place-you-might-least-expect-it\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T15:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T15:21:13","slug":"employment-anxiety-among-canadians-is-highest-in-the-place-you-might-least-expect-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2026\/10\/14\/employment-anxiety-among-canadians-is-highest-in-the-place-you-might-least-expect-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Employment anxiety among Canadians is highest in the place you might least expect it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<br \/><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&amp;apos;Fragile&amp;apos; consumers to spend less this holiday season\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OMQsrPI5dD8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> About half of Canadians are having anxiety about their ability to change jobs or find comparable employment , but such worries are even higher in Alberta despite a strong job market , says MNP Ltd . <\/p>\n<p> Nationally, 55 per cent of working people polled for MNP by Ipsos said they worried about job mobility and opportunities , much higher than Grant Bazian, president of MNP, was expecting. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cBut when you have a majority over half the population, or at least a survey indicating that there was anxiety about it, to me that was a bit of an eye-opener,\u201d he said. \u201cI credit that to just so much uncertainty in the world right now.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Job mobility worries were 61 per cent amongst Albertans, \u201cthe highest proportion among the provinces,\u201d according to the survey, but such fears in Ontario were a close second at 60 per cent. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cBig picture, Albertans have experienced a lot more economic cycles than most other Canadians,\u201d Sandra Landry, an Alberta-based licenced insolvency trustee at MNP, said, referring to the historical rise and fall of global energy prices. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cEven when people are employed, they often remember how quickly circumstances can change, so that\u2019s where a lot of this feeling is coming from.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Financial vulnerability appears to be the root cause for people\u2019s fears, with 32 per cent nationally and 40 per cent in Alberta saying it would prove to be a struggle to find a new job with similar pay and benefits. There were also worries about the ability to withstand a period of lower or no income. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cWhen Canadians are not confident they can replace their income if their job situation changed, carrying debt can feel much more precarious ,\u201d Bazian said. \u201cA job loss, reduction in hours or change in pay can quickly alter what a household can afford, particularly when there is not much room in the budget to absorb the change.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> More than half of those surveyed said they would not be able to support themselves or their family for six months without borrowing or falling behind on bills if they lost their job. <\/p>\n<p> But if anyone can breathe a little easier about their employment prospects, it should be Albertans. <\/p>\n<p> The province gained 23,000 jobs in September, reversing two straight months of losses, while Canada\u2019s economy lost 68,000 roles, Statistics Canada said on Oct. 9. The province\u2019s unemployment rate fell to 6.4 per cent from 6.8 per cent in August and is now lower than the national jobless rate of 6.5 per cent. <\/p>\n<p> However, Albertans also have some of the highest debt-income ratios, Charles St-Arnaud, chief economist at Servus Credit Union in Edmonton, said in a note earlier this month on consumer debt. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThis makes Albertans particularly vulnerable to job losses ,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p> Their \u201cpurchasing power\u201d has also eroded due to weaker pay and wage increases, which grew one per cent year over year, much lower than the rest of the country, he said in a separate note. <\/p>\n<p> Landry said Albertans have been on the alert for the past year. <\/p>\n<p> \u201c(Albertans) just become less willing to take any of those career risks and become a lot more concerned about protecting that existing income,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p> Aside from debt fears, about four in 10 Canadians said they worried artificial intelligence could harm their employment and income and that fear was highest in the Atlantic provinces at 47 per cent. <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>&#8216;Sour&#8217; job report could give Bank of Canada breathing room on rate hikes, economists say<\/li>\n<li>William Watson: What Statistics Canada data said one day in October<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> About a quarter of working respondents said trade and tariff wars also posed a threat, and that fear was highest in Saskatchewan and Manitoba at 32 per cent. <\/p>\n<p> Bazian said artificial intelligence registered as a higher concern because it is a permanent change, unlike tariffs. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cThere\u2019s the (U.S.) midterm elections coming up. They know that the president is not going to be there for another term. So, this is a temporary thing,\u201d he said. \u201cMost people feel that it\u2019s eventually going to settle, so they\u2019re not as anxious. But AI, that\u2019s kind of here to stay.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: gmvsuhanic@postmedia.com <\/em> <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How low can the Canadian dollar go?\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m0vS6ooYans?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>Employment anxiety among Canadians is highest in the place you might least expect it<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2026-10-14 15:21:13<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About half of Canadians are having anxiety about their ability to change jobs or find comparable employment , but such worries are even higher in Alberta despite a strong job&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}