What Industries Are Hiring Right Now in Canada? Q2 2025 Update

Job growth in Canada remains steady compared with the past year, according to research conducted for Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report. Over half of employers (46 per cent) at organizations of all sizes report that they’re recruiting talent to expand their teams, mostly to support company growth.

This aligns with Statistics Canada’s latest Labour Force Survey, which reported 307,500 more people working at the end of July 2025 compared to July 2024 (a 1.5 per cent rise year-over-year), although the pace of growth has slowed compared to earlier months. The Canadian unemployment rate was unchanged between June and July 2025, holding steady at 6.9 per cent.

However, while more companies are seeking talent to support critical initiatives, many employers are struggling to find skilled candidates available for hire. Eighty-eight 88 per cent of Canadian hiring managers report difficulty locating talent — with three in 10 (32 per cent) saying it is very challenging.

The Demand for Skilled Talent report highlights the latest data from Robert Half surveys of hiring managers and our analysis of a proprietary dataset of hundreds of thousands Canadian job postings across 5,400 unique job boards and company sites, including over 13,000 Robert Half placements. It is intended to help hiring managers make informed staffing decisions.

This post takes a deeper dive into our newly updated report. It provides an overview of key industries that are likely to recruit talent in the second half of 2025, and jobs expected to be in high demand.

What Industries Are Hiring Right Now in Canada?

Which types of industries have been adding jobs in 2024?
Business and professional services hiring trends
Consumer products hiring trends
Education services hiring trends
Finance and insurance hiring trends
Government hiring trends
Manufacturing hiring trends
Tech and IT hiring trends
More insights
Methodology

Which types of industries have been adding jobs in 2025?

The business and professional services, government, finance and insurance, manufacturing and distribution, and consumer products industries together contributed over 130,100 new positions to the Canadian economy in the first half of 2025.

The consumer products, educational services, manufacturing and distribution, and business and professional services industries saw declines in job growth in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.

In contrast, the most significant growth was observed in the government or public sector, which more than doubled its job postings. The finance and insurance and information technology industries stayed relatively stable compared to H1 2024 job postings.

Business and professional services hiring trends

The business and professional services industries had the most job openings in the first six months of 2025 (+65,400 jobs) compared with all other industries that Robert Half supports with our talent solutions.

33 per cent of job openings in business and professional services were in finance and accounting, 27 per cent were in technology, and 22 per cent were in administrative and customer support.

Here’s a look, by functional area, at some top roles employers were recruiting for in the first half of 2025:

Finance and accounting

Accounting clerk (+1,400 jobs)

AR/AP Clerk (+1,300 jobs)

Senior accountant (+1,300 jobs)

Senior financial analyst (+1,100 jobs)

Senior business analyst (+1,000 jobs)

Bookkeeper (+900 jobs)

Tech and IT

Software engineer/developer (+4,500 jobs)

Full stack developer (+1,200 jobs)

DevOps engineer (+600 jobs)

Senior web developer (+600 jobs)

Administrative and customer support

Administrative assistant (+2,900 jobs)

Project assistant/coordinator (+2,100 jobs)

Customer service specialist (+2,100 jobs)

Receptionist (+1,200 jobs)

Office manager (+1,100 jobs)

Consumer products hiring trends

Consumer products was the third-largest industry contributing to the job market in the first half of 2025, with 12,800 openings. Administrative and customer service roles made up nearly 45 per cent of the new professional openings within this industry, totaling nearly 5,700 jobs.

The most in-demand jobs in the consumer products industry in the first six months of 2025 included:

Customer service specialist (+1,700 jobs)

Customer service manager (+700 jobs)

Receptionist (+600 jobs)

Sales assistant (+600 jobs)

Administrative assistant (+500 jobs)

Education services hiring trends

Universities and educational organizations recruited talent for 4,200 job openings in Canada in the first half of 2025. These jobs were predominately in administrative and customer support (37 per cent), followed by finance and accounting (19 per cent), technology (18 per cent), and marketing and creative (16 per cent). Administrative assistant topped the list of job openings (+600 jobs).

Finance and insurance hiring trends

Employers in the financial services industry recruited talent for 17,800 jobs in the first half of 2025, a 19 per cent increase over the first half of 2024. Notably, the most significant year-on-year increase in job growth within this sector was observed in tech and IT functions, which saw a 32 per cent rise.

Thirty-five 35 per cent of the jobs in this industry were specifically in finance and accounting functions, while 27 per cent were in administrative and customer support, and 25 per cent were in technology. The most in-demand finance and accounting jobs in the financial sector included client service representative (+500 jobs), senior business analyst (+400 jobs), and senior financial analyst (+400 jobs). Other notable roles in the finance and insurance industry included customer service specialist (+2,200 jobs), software engineer/developer (+1,300 jobs), and administrative assistant (+700 jobs).

Find your next job in finance or accounting today

Government hiring trends

The Canadian public sector added close to 18,800 jobs in the first half of 2025, a 169 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. The largest share of these jobs was in administrative and customer support (44 per cent), followed by finance and accounting (24 per cent), and technology (14 per cent). Government entities were particularly focused on hiring for the following roles in these functional areas:

Administrative, customer support and human resources

Administrative assistant (+3,200 jobs)

Office manager (+1,200 jobs)

Receptionist (+600 jobs)

Customer service specialist (+600 jobs)

Finance and accounting

Bookkeeper (+1,200 jobs)

Accounting clerk (+700 jobs)

Manufacturing hiring trends

Among the professional roles that Robert Half places in the manufacturing industry, there were over 16,700 new job openings added in the first six months of 2025. These jobs were primarily in companies’ administrative and customer support (29 per cent), and finance and accounting (27 per cent), and technology (24 per cent) departments.

The following roles were in particular demand in the manufacturing industry:

Customer service specialist (+1,200 jobs)

Software engineer/developer (+1,200 jobs)

Administrative assistant (+800 jobs)

Project assistant/coordinator (+400 jobs)

Accounting clerk (+400 jobs)

AR/AP clerk (+400 jobs)

Tech and IT hiring trends

The technology industry recruited talent for 7,000 jobs in the first half of 2025. Companies primarily hired for their technology functions (49 per cent) but also staffed their marketing and creative (17 per cent), administrative and customer support (15 per cent), and finance and accounting (14 per cent) teams.

The following roles were in especially high demand in the technology industry:

Tech and IT

Software engineer/developer (+1,200 jobs)

Full stack developer (+190 jobs)

Applications support specialist (+140 jobs)

DevOps engineer (+120 jobs)

Back- end developer (+110 jobs)

Project manager (+100 jobs)

Other

Customer service specialist (+400 jobs)

Marketing manager (+200 jobs)

Administrative assistant (+100 jobs)

Get more insights in Robert Half’s Demand for Skilled Talent report

Access Report

We know from our latest research for the Demand for Skilled Talent report that many employers in Canada have plans to hire, but another trend may work against their recruitment goals: Only 26 per cent of Canadian workers we surveyed said they plan to look for a new job during the second half of 2025 — down from 50 per cent who had similar plans during the same period last year.

For tips on how to overcome hiring challenges in the current labour market, plus more data on Canadian hiring and employment trends in 2025, read the full Demand for Skilled Talent report.

See our industry-specific analyses of in-demand roles and hiring trends

Want to dig deeper into expected hiring trends for the second half of 2025? See Robert Half’s data and analysis for these top fields:

Finance and accounting

Technology

Marketing and creative

Legal

Administrative and customer support

Human resources

Methodology

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Industry calculations are based on job postings provided by Textkernel. Positions are categorized into more than 350 job titles within Robert Half's 2025 Canada Salary Guide using a proprietary mapping methodology that employs state-of-the-art large language models. This dataset includes roles across the finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal, administrative and customer support, and human resources., and healthcare support professions