Canada's AI-Driven Job Market Shifts: Slower Hiring Ahead
The Bank of Canada has released a report suggesting that AI is already affecting job markets in Canada, but not necessarily in an obvious way. According to researchers Dany Brouillette, Tatjana Dahlhaus, and Gabriela Galassi, AI is more likely to automate specific tasks than erase whole jobs, so the effects will differ by role.
The team estimates that Canada's average 'AI exposure' at 0.29 in 2025, indicating a moderate level of automation risk. They found particularly high exposure for receptionists and accountants, while jobs requiring in-person work or hard-to-replicate judgment, such as carpenters and judges, have lower exposure.
The researchers also discovered that workers in highly exposed occupations already faced higher unemployment risk in 2015-19, with this gap widening from 1.9 to 2.8 percentage points by 2025. Notably, this widening appears driven more by weaker job-finding rates than by more layoffs.
The Bank of Canada's researchers caution that the data cannot pinpoint the change on AI alone due to other post-2019 labor-market shifts and suggest that the longer-term impact depends on how fast firms adopt the tools and how quickly workers and workplaces adjust.