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November 2, 2026

Job Market Outlook: Canada Rewards High-Wage Jobs in Express Entry as US Hiring Stays Thin

From November 3, Canada's Express Entry gives extra points for high-wage jobs and drops the LMIA requirement for qualifying offers. In the US, forecasters expect another slow jobs report Friday, with pay still trailing inflation. Here is what both changes mean for your search this month.

The short version

Two very different stories shape the job market this Monday. In Canada, a change to Express Entry takes effect tomorrow. It rewards experience and job offers in high-wage occupations, and it removes a piece of paperwork that has kept many employers from backing foreign workers. In the United States, the picture going into Friday's October jobs report hasn't changed much: steady unemployment, very slow hiring and paycheques that buy a little less each month.

We covered the full calendar for this week, including both jobs reports and Canada's November 5 budget, in yesterday's week-ahead post. Today's focus is what's new and what it means for the way you apply.

Canada: Express Entry starts favouring high-wage occupations on November 3

Starting Tuesday, November 3, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will give additional Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) points to Express Entry candidates who have Canadian work experience, or a qualifying job offer, in a high-wage occupation, according to IRCC's October 16 announcement. Express Entry is the main system Canada uses to rank and invite skilled workers to apply for permanent residence.

Three details matter most:

  • What counts as "high-wage." IRCC defines it as an occupation whose median wage is at least 1.3 times the median for the whole Canadian workforce. It's based on the occupation's typical pay, not on what you personally earn. IRCC names health care, skilled trades, engineering, technology and education as examples and publishes the full list on its website.
  • No LMIA needed for a qualifying offer. A Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) is the federal approval employers have usually needed to show no Canadian was available for a job. From November 3, a qualifying offer doesn't need one to earn the new points. IRCC says it will still check that offers are genuine.
  • A short pause. IRCC will recalculate scores for everyone already in the pool. That can take up to two weeks, and invitation rounds are paused while it happens. Candidates who want job-offer points had to update their profiles before November 3.

On the size of the boost, IRCC's announcement doesn't list point values. An analysis by Mathews Dinsdale & Clark LLP says the maximum is 150 points for a single applicant and that qualifying offers must be full-time and in skilled occupations (NOC TEER 0 to 3). Check IRCC's own pages before relying on any specific number.

Business groups welcomed the change, New Canadian Media reports, though one immigration researcher it interviewed questioned how IRCC will police job offers without an LMIA. IRCC describes this as a first step in broader Express Entry reforms.

Why this matters if you're job hunting:

  • If you're a temporary resident in Canada, your occupation now matters more for permanent residence. A job offer in a listed high-wage occupation is worth more than before, and it's easier for an employer to give one because the LMIA step is gone.
  • If you're a citizen or permanent resident, this doesn't directly change who can apply for your next job. It may, over time, make it easier for employers in health care, trades, engineering and tech to fill hard-to-staff roles from the existing pool of temporary workers. That's a policy goal, not yet a measured effect.
  • If you're negotiating an offer as a temporary resident, ask early whether it will be full-time and long enough to qualify. Those terms now matter for more than pay.

Watch out for anyone selling "guaranteed" job offers for Express Entry points. Removing the LMIA doesn't remove the need for a real job, and offers that come with a fee are a classic scam pattern. Our guide to spotting fake job postings covers the warning signs.

United States: another slow month expected

KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk expects October payrolls to grow by about 45,000, after 29,000 in September, with the unemployment rate holding at 4.2%, according to KPMG's October employment primer published October 30. Other forecasts cluster in a similar low range, as we noted yesterday.

A few points from KPMG's preview help explain why a slow number doesn't automatically mean rising unemployment:

  • Fewer people are joining the labour force. Immigration curbs have slowed labour force growth, so the number of jobs needed to keep unemployment stable is now close to zero, KPMG estimates. Unemployment has stayed below 4.5% for 59 straight months.
  • Pay is falling behind. KPMG says average hourly earnings were up 2.9% from a year earlier in September, below inflation for a 13th consecutive month. Low unemployment hasn't translated into strong raises.
  • Tech and government are the weak spots. KPMG cites Challenger, Gray & Christmas data showing nearly 166,000 announced tech job cuts through September, up 54% from a year earlier. It also notes that federal employment is near its lowest level since 1966, with hiring limited to one new worker for every four who leave.
  • Health care and engineering lead postings. KPMG points to physician, surgeon and therapist roles at the top of Indeed postings, with engineering roles tied to infrastructure and data centres close behind.

Manufacturing is a smaller bright spot. The ISM survey's factory employment index was 52.7 in September, its third month in a row above 50 (the line between growth and contraction). The October reading is due at 10 a.m. ET today and wasn't available when this post was written, so check ISM's report page for the latest figure.

What this means for your search

The common thread in both countries is that demand is concentrated, not broad. Canada's immigration system is now explicitly steering toward the same fields US job postings favour: health care, skilled trades, engineering and parts of tech. Outside those areas, employers are hiring carefully and replacing fewer departures.

That has a few practical consequences:

  1. Your occupation label matters more than usual. If your work overlaps with a high-demand field, say so in plain language on your resume. A "project coordinator" at an engineering firm should name the type of projects and the engineering context.
  2. Don't wait for Friday's numbers. A weak or strong headline won't change what an employer with an approved opening does this week.
  3. Look for small, specific openings in large organizations. In a low-hire market, many jobs come from replacing a single departure. These postings are narrow and close quickly, so a tight, tailored application beats volume.
  4. If you're in Canada on a work permit, confirm whether your occupation is on IRCC's high-wage list before your next job move, and get immigration advice from a licensed consultant or lawyer before accepting an offer on the strength of the points.

Tip #8: When you can't show a result, show the scale

The problem: Resume advice often says to quantify your results. But many jobs don't produce a clean metric, or you simply don't have the numbers. So applicants fall back on vague duties like "managed client accounts."

What to do instead: Quantify the scope of your work: how many, how often, how much, or for whom. Scale tells a hiring manager the size of the job you can handle, even without a percentage improvement.

Example: An applicant applying for a clinic administrator role.

  • Before: "Handled scheduling and patient intake at a busy clinic."
  • After: "Scheduled 60 to 80 patient appointments a day across four practitioners and processed intake for about 25 new patients a week."

New graduates can use the same approach with school or volunteer work: "Organized a 12-volunteer team for a weekly food bank shift serving roughly 150 families."

Keep every number honest and approximate when you need to. A reasonable estimate you can explain in an interview is better than a precise figure you can't support.

Today's action: Find the two vaguest bullets on your resume and add one number to each that shows volume, frequency, budget or team size.

The takeaway

Canada's Express Entry change is the clearest signal of the week about where policymakers think the shortages are, and it lines up closely with where US employers are still posting jobs. The broader market remains slow in both countries. Your best move this week is to make the fit between your experience and those in-demand fields as obvious as possible, and keep applying while the data comes in.

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