People aged 55 and up now hold over a million jobs in Quebec

photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

People aged 55 and over have just passed the million-job mark in Quebec.

In 2023, they held 1,000,500 jobs, compared with 961,000 in 2022, the Quebec Statistics Istitute (ISQ) revealed on Tuesday in its Annual Labour Market Report for 2023.

Workers aged 55 and over now hold nearly one in four jobs, or 22.2 per cent of all jobs in Quebec.

For the period from 2013 to 2023, job growth reached 34.6 per cent among those aged 55 and over, compared with only 6.5 per cent for those aged 25-54.

"And it's going to get even stronger," said Luc Cloutier-Villeneuve, ISQ labour statistics analyst, in an interview on Tuesday.

"It's the effect of the overall 'aging' of the population," he explained, "but also the fact that we stay in good health longer than previous generations."

He also believes that public policies to encourage experienced employees to stay at work or return to work have an influence.

He noted that there is a certain "obligation to work longer" to access retirement for those who do not have sufficiently high incomes.

- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Feb. 20, 2024.