Tourism Continues to Deliver Strong Labour Market Signals.
With the summer surge in full swing, the tourism sector[1] in July 2026 saw gains across labour force and employment over June[2]. Employment passed 2.3 million, a gain of nearly 90,000 from the previous month. Unemployment rose slightly, driven by greater gains in labour force than in employment. Tourism employment rose to 11% of all employment across Canada, with the loss of nearly 130,000 people from employment across the entire economy.
Table 1 provides a snapshot of each industry group’s performance across labour force, employment, and unemployment, as compared with June 2026 [MoM] and July 2025 [YoY], and with July 2019 as a pre-pandemic baseline. Small arrows represent changes of less than 1% (or one percentage point, in the case of unemployment).
Overall, most industry groups have continued to show growth as summer has matured, although accommodations stumbled into July and travel services also reported losses—although, as noted regularly in these reports, data relating to travel services is not necessarily reliable in the short term.
Relative to last year, most indices showed improvement, and the scope of industries that had surpassed 2019 levels tipped to include food and beverage services.
Tourism Sector
At the aggregate sector level (Table 2), the national tourism workforce grew by around 4% in July, across both labour force and employment. Both indices were also considerably higher than last year and before the pandemic.
The unemployment rate held fairly steady from June, with only a slight increase to 4.4%. This showed some variation from last year and 2019, and although the differences in percentage terms were not very big, the raw unemployment figures for July 2026 were 20,000 below where they were in 2019.
Compared to the wider national economy (Table 3), the tourism sector was in a substantially stronger position. While the overall labour force grew by only 2,700 people, tourism added 95,000 to its labour pool. And while overall employment fell by nearly 128,000, tourism added nearly 90,000. The total economy unemployment rate rose from June to 6.7% (calculated using seasonally unadjusted data), an increase of 0.6 percentage points.
In July, tourism’s share of all employment in Canada rose to 11%, a full percentage point above where it was in 2019. Around 10% of the entire Canadian labour force held a job in tourism. The sector seems to be bucking broader economic trends, although whether this is a general shift or a seasonal anomaly remains to be seen.
Part-Time and Full-Time Employment
The ratio of part-time to full-time employment provides useful insights on the stability of the workforce over time. Figure 1 shows a consistent shift across all industry groups towards lower part-time employment—which is to say, higher rates of full-time employment. At the sector level, the decrease was around 4 percentage points, which masked variation between industry groups but drew level with the July ratio from 2019.
Accommodations saw a very slight decrease in part-time work, as did food and beverage services. In accommodations, the recent trend has been around 18% or 19% part-time employment, slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels. In food and beverage services, the shift towards full-time employment has been more dramatic, and likewise fallen below pre-pandemic levels. Recreation and entertainment and transportation saw more substantial shifts away from part-time work month over month, but remain more reliant on part-time work than they were in June 2019.
The volatility of travel services data makes short-term inference less reliable, but it is interesting to note that July 2026 estimates showed part-time employment to have increased by around 5 percentage points since the pandemic, suggesting that, although this industry may stabilizing, it remains less dependable as a source of full-time, career-focused employment.
Hours Worked
The total hours worked is another useful metric by which to assess the demand for labour across the tourism sector (Figure 2), particularly in industries that support so much part-time employment and where the raw employment figures alone can slightly distort the picture. The total hours worked in July 2026 marked a considerable increase from June (+7.0%) and from last year (+5.3%), and surpassed 2019 levels (+2.5%). Given both the increase in employment and the overall shift towards more full-time employment in July, these figures add weight to the suggestion that the sector is indeed pulling its weight in the Canadian economy. Hopefully this trend will continue into August, although the intensity of the wildfires across much of western Canada may have an impact.
Looking year-over-year at the industry group level (Figure 2), total hours worked edged up across all industries except for travel services, which remained around half its pre-pandemic level. Accommodations saw only a very slight year-on-year increase from 2025 (+1.3%), while food and beverage services saw the largest increase (+8.3%), and transportation (+6.5%) and recreation and entertainment (+3.4%) saw moderate gains.
For three of these industries (food and beverage services, recreation and entertainment, and transportation), year-on-year growth has been fairly steady since the peak pandemic restrictions in 2020, and all three have passed July 2019 levels. The trajectory of recovery and regrowth has been more complicated for accommodations, which saw a substantial increase in July 2023 (coinciding with a more modest but nevertheless important spike in travel services); this was likely in response to 2023 being the first summer with few, if any, travel restrictions in place.
Youth in Tourism
Tourism plays an important role in attaching young people to employment, with its seasonality that aligns closely with academic calendars and its range of flexible opportunities for part-time work throughout the year. The skills and experiences that young Canadians gain through working in tourism will serve them well throughout their lives, regardless of which sector they end up working in. At a time when public discourse is heavily focused on youth unemployment and the myriad challenges facing youth, tourism is well positioned to support youth onto the first rung of the employment ladder.
In July (Table 4), tourism remained a major employer of youth, with over one-quarter of all working youth holding jobs in tourism, compared with the sector’s overall share of 10% of the workforce (across all age categories.) And in spite of the large share of youth who worked in tourism, only 11% of all unemployed youth across the entire economy were looking for work in tourism. This is reflected in the youth unemployment rates, where the rate for youth in tourism was less than half of what it was across the entire economy.
Industry Closeup: Accommodations
The accommodations industry in July posted a loss of around 1.5% of its labour force from June, but a much smaller loss in employment, which acted to pull the unemployment rate down to 2.8% (Table 5). This imbalance suggests a structural challenge around worker mobility: people leaving the industry when there’s a mismatch between where they are and where the jobs are. Under less economically trying times, it might be the case that people are being attracted to other sectors, but current conditions show that tourism overall is outpacing many other sectors. Given the high cost of living and the paucity of affordable rentals in the vicinity of many rural and resort properties, this has likely been an important contributing factor in this decrease. The workforce in accommodations remained around 14% smaller than it was before the disruptions of the pandemic.
Industry Closeup: Food and Beverage Services
As suggested by the total hours worked metric, food and beverage services saw reliable gains across both labour force and employment in July (Table 6), which led to gains of over 3.5% across both indices. The unemployment rate was little changed from June, and although the industry posted strong gains relative to last year, the unemployment rate remained static, suggesting that the industry is settling into a new summer pattern.
Industry Closeup: Recreation and Entertainment
Growth continued in recreation and entertainment, as it has for the past few years, with gains from June of around 7% bringing the industry to around 14% above its pre-pandemic size. Unemployment fell by around 5,700 people, with gains in employment outpacing those in labour force.
Industry Closeup: Transportation
July saw small gains in transportation, with labour force outstripping employment, bringing the unemployment rate up to a relatively high 4.4%. The unemployment rate was lower than it was last year, however, and there was a net gain in employment from last year, so this industry does not seem to be unbalanced, merely shifting in response to seasonal changes.
Industry Closeup: Travel Services
As previously noted, data relating to travel services is not always an entirely reliable indicator of the state of the industry, due to its small size in relation to the sampling methodology of the LFS. Table 9 provides high-level statistics as reported by Statistics Canada, but should be interpreted with caution. Changes from June were minimal, but the industry remained substantially below its 2019 levels.
Provincial Perspectives
The Canadian economy is subject to some pronounced regional differences, and that is particularly true in the tourism sector. Figure 4 provides a comparison of provincial unemployment rates, for the tourism sector in particular and for the total labour force (i.e., comprising all industries).
Across all provinces, tourism unemployment rates were lower than those of their economy-wide counterparts, with the biggest gap noted in New Brunswick (3.4 percentage points). Tourism unemployment rates ranged from 5.8% in Alberta to 2.8% in Manitoba.
Provincial Summaries for July 2026
The following ten tables provide July 2026 summaries for the provinces, focusing on tourism and its five industry groups. Comparison data is provided for the larger provincial economy, as a benchmarking reference. Seasonally unadjusted estimates are provided for labour force, employment, and hours worked, and the final row of each table indicates tourism’s share of each of these metrics. The share of work that is part-time (as opposed to full-time) is also provided, as a rough indicator of the labour composition, as are the unemployment rates.
Where data was not available due to suppression from Statistics Canada, “n/a” has been entered in the table. The three territories are not included in the LFS releases at this level of granularity, so no comparison is possible between the territories and the provinces. The provinces are listed alphabetically.
View more employment charts and analysis on our Tourism Employment Tracker.
[1] As defined by the Canadian Tourism Satellite Account. The NAICS industries included in the tourism sector those that would cease to exist or would operate at a significantly reduced level of activity as a direct result of an absence of tourism.
[2] SOURCE: Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, customized tabulations. Based on seasonally unadjusted data collected for the period of July 12 to 18, 2026.