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The number of jobs that needed to be filled in Quebec stood at about 116,440 during the second quarter of 2018, an increase of nearly 40 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Institut de la statistique du Québec.

The agency found that the rate of job vacancies — the number of jobs needing to be filled expressed as a percentage of demand — stood at 3.2 per cent in Quebec during the period, similar to the national rate as well as those recorded in Ontario and Alberta.

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Meanwhile, the Institut noted that almost half of the job vacancies recorded in the province were in Montreal and the Montérégie.

However the highest rate — 3.9 per cent — was found in the Quebec City region.

The sector with the largest number of jobs to be filled was manufacturing (16,630), followed by retail (14,605), health care and social assistance (13,570) and hotel and restaurants (12,820). The jobs most in need of people to do them were serving staff, kitchen assistants, and “related support staff.”

The Institut notes that this is the first time since it began compiling these statistics in 2015 that the number of job vacancies in Quebec has passed the threshold of 100,000 over the course of a single quarter. The number had until now remained stable, varying between the start of 2015 and that of 2017 from 50,000 to 70,000.