Canadian technology job postings on Indeed more than doubled between February 2020 and early 2022 amid a pandemic-fuelled rise in demand and a record-hot venture capital market.
“There was this boom that could not continue as it was proceeding, then came the bust.”
But since the middle of 2022, Canadian tech hiring on Indeed has plunged. It has stayed low as interest rate hikes to combat rising inflation and ongoing trade uncertainty have squashed tech investment, and the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has impacted the sector.
A new report from Indeed shows that Canadian tech job postings on the site are down 19 percent as of August 2025, relative to pre-pandemic levels. Indeed notes that Canadian tech job listings “have gone from boom to bust” since 2020.
“This is a cyclical sector,” Indeed Senior Economist Brendon Bernard told BetaKit in an interview. “There was this boom that could not continue as it was proceeding, then came the bust.”
Bernard attributed this decline to a combination of deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and the rise of AI automation. But he noted that its exact cause is a bit tougher to pinpoint given that Canadian tech hiring on Indeed was already in the midst of its sharpest drop when the generative AI era kicked off with ChatGPT’s public release in late 2022.
“A decent chunk of the shift in hiring appetite is probably a hangover from that earlier boom,” Bernard said. He speculated that the rise of AI may have prevented a rebound by reducing tech companies’ interest in expanding their workforces.
“We know AI is a risk to tech jobs because the capabilities of [generative] AI overlap with so many of the tasks and skills involved with many tech jobs,” he said.
While both the tech and overall job markets have cooled off compared to their pandemic peaks, the decline in Canadian tech has been much steeper.
According to Indeed job postings, the trajectory of Canada’s tech hiring market has been similar to other countries with advanced economies. Bernard said that indicates the driving forces are global.
In fact, countries like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) have seen steeper drops in tech job postings during this period. In the US, tech job postings are down 34 percent relative to pre-pandemic levels.
Bernard said he is unsure why there is such a contrast between Canada and the US, but offered one possible explanation: the US may have been a bit more aggressive on the automation front than Canada. “This could reflect a greater trend toward automation in the US,” Bernard said.
During the bust, postings for senior roles have held up, while more entry-level or early career positions, which are more vulnerable to automation, have seen larger drops since early 2020.
Meanwhile, the rise of AI is reflected in demand for certain roles, such as machine learning engineers, data engineers, data centre technicians, AI architects, and AI developers, as postings for these positions are up relative to pre-pandemic levels. These have fared better than other types of tech jobs, such as standard software engineer positions, which have dropped 51 percent compared to early 2022.
Going forward, Bernard said he is paying close attention to how the tech hiring market evolves compared to the rest of the economy when there is another cyclical pickup: if it lags, AI may be the culprit.
Bernard noted that, historically, in other sectors where automation has reduced jobs over time, such as in manufacturing, employment has typically dropped during downturns and failed to bounce back. He said he is curious to see whether this also holds true for tech jobs.
“We need more data to see how things play out,” Bernard said. “But those will be some things I’ll be watching for in the coming years.”
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by ThisisEngineering.