{"id":658134,"date":"2026-05-09T12:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658134\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T12:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:26:09","slug":"young-canadians-face-sputtering-job-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658134\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Canadians face sputtering job economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s economy shed 18,000 jobs in April, pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.9 per cent, the highest it’s been in six months. John Vennavally-Rao explains. <\/p>\n

Reza Mahmoudian says he\u2019s has applied for more than 100 jobs in the past three months. No one called him back.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a single one,\u201d the 28-year-old says. \u201cI feel very frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a couple of years, Mahmoudian worked as a home energy advisor \u2014 a self-contractor who says he used to put in 70-hour weeks. However, most of the government incentives that sustained that work, including the Canada Greener Homes Loan program, have ended, and business has dried up.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d like to move into construction \u2014 siding, roofing, interior work \u2014 but the sector\u2019s downturn has narrowed his options at the worst possible time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy main goal is finding a contractor who is eager to teach me whatever skills I can gain,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

With costs rising and bills to pay, Mahmoudian has started posting his availability on Facebook and in WhatsApp groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI even posted my phone number, which increases the risk of all kinds of scams,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s very tough for anyone looking for a job right now, especially people under 30.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Edmonton job fair Students attend an Edmonton job fair in March (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News). Unprecedented increase for youth unemployment<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada\u2019s Labour Force Survey for April<\/a>, released Friday, backs that up. The unemployment rate for Canadians aged 15 to 24 rose half a percentage point to 14.3 per cent. Overall, Canada shed roughly 18,000 jobs in April, pushing the national unemployment rate to 6.9 per cent \u2014 a six-month high. <\/p>\n

A recent Fraser Institute study puts those numbers in stark context.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s disconcerting is that the overall economy is not in a recession,\u201d says study author Philip Cross. \u201cSomething extraordinary and unprecedented has happened to the youth labour market in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youth unemployment in Canada has risen 3.8 percentage points in three years, the biggest increase ever outside a recession. <\/p>\n

Cross says he examined and ruled out several explanations, including artificial intelligence. He points to the U.S. as a comparison: while Canada\u2019s youth unemployment rate was 13.8 per cent last year, the American rate was around 10 per cent \u2014 a gap he says is approaching an all-time high.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is much further down the road in deploying technology, and particularly artificial intelligence, than Canada is,\u201d Cross says. \u201cAnd yet we\u2019re not seeing the same spike in unemployment in American youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Reza Mahmoudian Reza Mahmoudian says he\u2019s applied for more than 100 jobs in the last three months (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News) \u2018I\u2019m still trying\u2019<\/p>\n

In Cross\u2019s view, two forces collided. Higher minimum wages across most provinces reduced employer demand for workers in some sectors like retail and restaurants. While, a surge in international students dramatically expanded the pool of people competing for those same jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk any economist and they\u2019ll tell you: if you suddenly increase supply and depress demand at the same time, you\u2019re going to have a very bad outcome,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happened in this country over the last three or four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cross\u2019 study found young unemployed Canadians are remaining out of work for the longest periods on record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve stacked the deck against youth, and only youth,\u201d Cross says. \u201cAnd that is irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mahmoudian says in the last year life seems to have gotten way harder. Inflation is making it more expensive to live at a time when he\u2019s out of work. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s disappointed no one is getting back to him, but says he\u2019ll keep sending applications. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still trying.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s economy shed 18,000 jobs in April, pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.9 per cent, the highest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[712,45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-658134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-apple-news","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658134","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=658134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}