Canadians looking for holiday work may be in luck this year thanks to a surge in job postings since early November, a sign of a recovery in seasonal hiring after years of slowdown.
The surge in seasonal hiring this year was slightly stronger than in 2024 as
Canada was actually up 12 percent as of Nov. 4 compared to last year, according to data released by the job site. Job titles in advertisements use terms such as “seasonal,” “holiday,” or “Christmas.”
This annual increase is
improvement compared to last year
seasonal postings on Indeed, which are down 15 percent from 2023 and significantly lower than at their peak in 2022.
Indeed, Canada's senior economist Brandon Bernard said one potential reason for the rise could be strong retail sales in Canada over the past year, both overall and in brick-and-mortar stores, which began to pick up towards the end of 2024.
“2024 was a particularly weak year in terms of holiday publications, which coupled with a decent year for
there may be some factors contributing to (the growth),” Bernard said in an interview. “But there are also just more people gradually coming out of
The increase in seasonal vacancies compared to 2024 comes against a backdrop of flat total vacancies, resulting in an increase in the seasonal share of total vacancies for the first time since 2022.
Its report said the decline in holiday reporting from 2022 to 2024 was part of a broader cooling in employer hiring since the pandemic.
Indeed said the timing of seasonal publications in 2025 is no different from previous years, typically starting in September. Around this time, Canadian employers in the retail and customer service sectors begin hiring seasonal workers to supplement their holiday jobs, with hiring activity typically peaking in late October.
The report says demand for these workers is not particularly strong and remains relatively weak compared to previous years. This year's numbers are still down eight percent and 35 percent from where they were at that time in 2023 and 2022, respectively, it said.
“This year is doing a little better, (but) last year was really weak. So the market is not resilient, but there will be some rebound in 2025 and that's something I didn't expect when I first looked at the data,” Bernard said.
Even so, the reversal of the downward trend is still good news for those looking for temporary work near the end of the year, Indeed said.
The overall share of jobs that were clearly seasonal remained stable over the two-year period from 2022 to 2024, as both holiday and general vacancies fell equally.
The partial recovery looks different in 2025, with overall publication volume roughly unchanged from the previous November, even as seasonal demand picked up, the report said.
The result was a slight increase in the seasonal share of Canadian vacancies, from 1.23 percent at the beginning of November 2024 to 1.34 percent in 2025.
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