Last month, the Bank of Montreal (BMO) Hiring Report stated that 26% of Canadian employers surveyed plan to expand their workforce during the second half of 2014. Job growth is mostly expected in the manufacturing and services sectors. Does employment and demand in these areas match expectations?

According to the latest Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, employment in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector grew by 48,000 jobs, up 5.1% when comparing August 2014 to August 2013. When speaking of this sector, we refer to businesses that provide services to clients in a variety of industries and sometimes households. BMO Capital Markets says that service sector job growth has been stronger than the manufacturing sector over the past year. They anticipate services sector employment to grow in professional & business services, health care, and education. However, recent hiring trends indicate that architectural, engineering, advertising, and public relations services had the most demand in this area. Although, the highest growth took place in landscape architectural services, up 21% year-over-year according to data from WANTED Analytics. There were 11,450 job listings posted online in the services sector during the past 30 days, which was actually 5% fewer ads than the same time last year. This doesn't seem to indicate major growth in the services sector, but perhaps demand may rise as we enter the 4th quarter of 2014.

Hiring Demand in the Services Sector - 4 Year Hiring Trend

SOURCE: WANTED Analytics

BMO expects employment in manufacturing to increase because of exports to the US, which were up 16% from a year earlier, according to The Globe and Mail. Tobacco product manufacturing continues to have the highest number of job ads in the manufacturing sector. Demand in this industry is up 23% when comparing the past 30 days to the same time last year. Medical equipment and supplies had the second most job listings, followed by household and institutional furniture and kitchen cabinet manufacturing. While not among the industries with the most demand, the number of job listings posted by bakeries and tortilla, as well as clay product and refractory manufacturing employers were on the rise, both up more than 36% year-over-year.

Hiring Demand in the Manufacturing Sector - 4 Year Hiring Trend

SOURCE: WANTED Analytics

In both sectors, these jobs were most sought after in the Toronto metro area. In this location, demand was up for manufacturing by 20%, yet down in the services sector by 1% when comparing the past 30 days to the same 30-day period last year.

Are you recruiting talent in these industries? What trends are you experiencing?