OTTAWA \u2014 A new report argues the rise of gig work, artificial intelligence and rapid population growth are souring job prospects for Canada\u2019s youngest workers.<\/p>\n
The Desjardins Economics report<\/a>, released Thursday, comes as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre cites decades-high youth unemployment levels<\/a> to attack an immigration program for temporary foreign workers.<\/p>\n Statistics Canada\u2019s latest labour force survey shows the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 hit 14.6 per cent in July \u2014 a nearly 15-year high outside of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n The Desjardins report said that the recent rise in youth unemployment is more typical of recessions.<\/p>\n Drilling down deeper into the youth cohort, StatCan said returning students aged 15 and 16 faced an unemployment rate of 31.4 per cent in July, the height of the summer jobs market.<\/p>\n Desjardins economist and report author Kari Norman said she sees the stress of the tough summer labour market at home.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen my own kids and my friends\u2019 kids struggle with finding summer jobs, co-op placements, anything like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Poilievre on Wednesday described young people in Canada as \u201cgeneration screwed\u201d for their lack of job opportunities. He blamed Ottawa\u2019s temporary foreign worker program for competing with youth for scarce job openings and called on the Liberals to scrap the regime.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that he is committed to reducing immigration but is not scrapping the temporary foreign worker programs, citing provincial support for the initiative. He opened the door to further adjustments to Canada\u2019s overall immigration plan.<\/p>\n LJ Valencia, another of the Desjardins report\u2019s authors, said that much of the current situation traces back to the COVID-19 pandemic recovery \u2014 when businesses were hungry for labour and Ottawa ramped up the inflow of foreign workers and loosened restrictions on international students to meet the demand.<\/p>\n \u201cJob opportunities are declining because the economy can\u2019t keep up with this state of population growth we\u2019ve seen over the past few years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But Desjardins also finds that it\u2019s these young international students, or the children of recently arrived workers now old enough to enter the labour force themselves, who are disproportionately struggling to find work today, compared to those born in Canada.<\/p>\n The Liberal government has enacted plans to slow the pace of population growth and limit the number of non-permanent residents in future years.<\/p>\n Desjardins\u2019 economists say that these targets, if achieved, would help to bring supply and demand back into better balance in the youth labour market.<\/p>\n \u201cReducing the number of youth through tightening immigration both in international students and other newcomers should soften the blow a little bit and help the youth that are still here find the jobs that are available to that age cohort,\u201d Norman said.<\/p>\n But other aspects of the modern economy are also conspiring to put pressure on young workers.<\/p>\n The rise of the gig economy \u2014 app-based and often precarious work \u2014 comes with barriers aimed at the youngest workers, Desjardins notes in the report.<\/p>\n Age restrictions on these apps can limit participation to those aged 18 and older. As a result, Normand said, kids who previously got paid for doing chores like walking dogs in their neighbourhood may be increasingly shut out from that early work experience due to the digital shift.<\/p>\n \u201cMy youngest in particular would love to get a job walking dogs, cat sitting, that kind of thing, but at 16, just isn\u2019t eligible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The rise of artificial intelligence and generative AI applications could also be creating a barrier.<\/p>\n Desjardins cites a Stanford University study published last week that found while core-working-age U.S. workers have so far faced minimal job disruption from AI, youth are starting to see employment losses. Valencia argued that could be the result of fewer entry-level job opportunities.<\/p>\n Norman offers the example of an AI tool that\u2019s good at finding legal case studies for a law firm. If a firm outsources that kind of work, which it normally would give to a young clerk, that can frustrate aspiring lawyers\u2019 efforts to get a foot in the door.<\/p>\n Whether youth unemployment starts to recover from here could depend on where the wider economy heads next, Valencia said.<\/p>\n As the economy continues to strain under the weight of U.S. tariffs and broader trade uncertainty, surveys from the Bank of Canada show businesses are reining in their hiring intentions.<\/p>\n Valencia said such shifts tend to have a pronounced effect on youth, who are often first to feel an economic contraction in their job prospects.<\/p>\n He said if Canada secures a new trade deal with the United States in the coming months, or if Ottawa finds other ways to restore certainty and encourage business investment, that could open up opportunities for youth again.<\/p>\n Norman said if youth are unable to get work experience in their teenage years, they may be forced to fund their post-secondary education solely with debt, hampering their future financial prospects. She called for a co-ordinated response from provincial and federal governments to support the transition of young people from high school to the workforce, the trades or future schooling.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the future of our labour force right here,\u201d Valencia said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if they\u2019re restricted from, or they\u2019re hampered by, the lack of job opportunities and the lack opportunities for career development, that has a lot significant structural effects on the economy looking towards the future.\u201d<\/p>\n This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 4, 2025.<\/p>\n Craig Lord, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 A new report argues the rise of gig work, artificial intelligence and rapid population growth are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,3717,47,66,715],"class_list":["post-120101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-labour","tag-national","tag-science","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}