{"id":125149,"date":"2025-09-06T21:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T21:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/125149\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T21:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T21:47:11","slug":"the-kids-are-not-alright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/125149\/","title":{"rendered":"The kids are not alright"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, Desjardins published a report<\/a> on youth unemployment detailing multiple factors behind the numbers. \u201cCurrent economic weakness helps to explain part of the recent rise in the youth unemployment rate,\u201d wrote its authors. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t explain all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

They point to an increase in young temporary residents, further growth in the so-called gig economy and greater investment in labour-saving tech, perhaps driven by minimum wage hikes. It\u2019s a toxic mix.<\/p>\n

\u201c[U]nemployment early in a career can have lasting impacts, including reduced earnings not only in the present but over one\u2019s lifetime,\u201d the report reads.<\/p>\n

Desjardins economist LJ Valencia is one of the co-authors. He and I spoke Friday about why unemployment among young Canadians \u2014 a statistic often buried in news coverage \u2014 deserves greater attention. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has a lot of consequences,\u201d he said. When 20-somethings have difficulty getting their careers going, \u201cthat affects their earnings potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

That in turn can have a broader effect, Valencia told me. \u201cIt has long lasting impacts, not just to the state of the labour market, but to the overall future state of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, young adults are facing a rise in unemployment rates \u201cthat normally one would see during a recession,\u201d Valencia said.<\/p>\n

This is not a systemic issue, but we aren\u2019t looking at a short-term recovery either. TD Economics has forecast 0.9% GDP growth for Canada this year<\/a>, and an overall unemployment rate of 7.3% in the fourth quarter. There isn\u2019t much optimism about next year either.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of businesses have really dampened their hiring intentions,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cThey\u2019d like to invest more money to help their company \u2026 but because of the uncertainty that\u2019s caused by trade and these on-and-off tariffs, it\u2019s hard for a business to really plan forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two takeaways. <\/p>\n

First, your clients who\u2019ve got kids in this age range probably didn\u2019t plan on supporting them to the extent they are right now. They deserve a check-in.<\/p>\n

Second, this is a useful lens through which to view clients and prospects who entered the workforce shortly after 2008. Their early career did not follow a traditional path, in all likelihood. Even those who\u2019ve recovered financially from that rocky start experienced a kind of stress comparable to those who came of age during the Great Depression. Their relationship with work and finances will be at least partly informed by those tough years for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Thursday, Desjardins published a report on youth unemployment detailing multiple factors behind the numbers. \u201cCurrent economic weakness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-125149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125149","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=125149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}