08:43 AM EDT, 09/27/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Little more than two years ago, there were one million vacant jobs in Canada, and there were little more than one million unemployed Canadians, noted Bank of Montreal (BMO).

Vacancies have since been sliced in half and the number of unemployed has vaulted to nearly 1.5 million. This has sent the unemployed-to-vacant jobs ratio spiking from a low of 1.03 to 2.65, said the bank.

That is, from basically full employment to a soft job market, pointed out BMO.

Aside from the pandemic distortion -- and Statistica Canada didn't even try to measure vacant jobs for part of 2020, so the series break) -- this is the highest jobless/vacant job ratio since 2017.

At that time, the ratio was sliding hard, and the Bank of Canada was just beginning to hike interest rates from extremely low levels, added BMO.