More below • Four young Canadians’ job-search sagas • Key charts to illustrate the crisis
It’s never easy to be young and searching for work. But this summer? For many young Canadians, it was a summer to forget.
Over the past three years, total job vacancies across the country have plunged by roughly half. This summer, there were fewer postings for lifeguards and camp counsellors – the first real paycheque for many high schoolers – but also for entry-level office roles that are sought after by fresh university graduates.
Young Canadians are sometimes applying to dozens, even hundreds, of jobs without luck. And they’re frustrated. By companies that “ghost” them. By precarious work. By the debt they’re taking on to pay the bills.
“It’s not like how you could walk into a store and firmly shake the manager’s hand and they’d give you a job on the spot,” said Salsabeel Hmer, a University of Calgary student who’s struggled to find a permanent part-time role. “You have hundreds of applicants for one minimum wage job.”
The numbers paint a grim picture. As of July, the youth unemployment rate (for those 15 to 24) was 14.6 per cent, the highest since 2010, excluding the first years of the pandemic. And the employment rate – the percentage of youth who are actively working – has tumbled to less than 54 per cent. Excluding the worst periods of COVID-19, that’s the lowest level since the late 1990s.
Even in the best of times, it can be tough for young people to get their footing in the labour market. They’re often the last to get hired and the first to get fired, as the old saying goes. And their employment prospects are especially sensitive to the economic cycle – something outside of their control.
That’s hardly reassuring news for the near future. The Canadian economy has been sluggish over the past few years, and because of the U.S.-driven trade war, the outlook is pocked with uncertainty.
The rise of artificial intelligence – and speculation that it could decimate entry-level work in some fields – has only added to the anxiety.
It’s a situation without quick fixes.
“The youth job market doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said Brendon Bernard, senior economist at hiring site Indeed Canada. “Youth need employers to be hiring, and hiring is highly cyclical. That’s just cooled off over the past few years.”
It’s been five years since COVID-19’s arrival left thousands of Canadians out of work or isolated at home. Once restrictions lifted, a hiring blitz began – and a mix of economic factors helped create conditions for the current slump in youth employment.
Taehoon Kim and Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Three summers ago, the Canadian labour market was in a vastly different – and healthier – place.
As pandemic restrictions were lifted, employers went on a hiring spree. The overall unemployment rate hit a modern-day low of 4.8 per cent. For youth, the jobless rate hit single digits, a rare occurrence.
In tandem, the country was also facing its worst inflation crisis in four decades, forcing the Bank of Canada to sharply raise borrowing costs to cool the economy, a process that began in 2022.
What’s emerged is a low-churn job market: Hiring rates are weak, but so too are layoff rates. Effectively, companies have hunkered down with their staffing in place as they wait out a number of economic headwinds – most recently, the erratic trade policies of the Trump administration, which threaten to tip Canada into recession.
The upshot is that Canada has mostly avoided the sort of mass layoffs that characterize an economic downturn. But the downside is that new workers are finding few opportunities to get in the door.
“New labour market entrants will always be hurt most by a decline in job openings, and youth are the biggest group of new labour market entrants,” said Mikal Skuterud, a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, by e-mail. “This is overwhelmingly what’s driving the increase in youth unemployment.”
Jhossayra Moya and Sheliza Jamal from Curated Leadership, a Toronto-based coaching firm, are at a local job fair to meet young people. Job applicants are finding it increasingly hard to get entry-level positions.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
There are, however, some other theories for what’s happening. First off: strong immigration.
Canada’s population surged between 2022 and 2024, fuelled in large part by temporary residents, including people on work visas and international students. As of April 1, temporary residents totalled nearly 3 million – an increase of 115 per cent over just three years.
The federal government eased many of its immigration rules to help companies fill the glut of job vacancies. International students were allowed to work longer hours, and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program could be tapped to fill more roles in retail and hospitality – two sectors that employ a big chunk of working youth.
“The past few years have seen extreme growth in the 15-24 category, largely due to the large influx of international students,” Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter wrote in a recent note to clients. “Unsurprisingly, when the youth population swells, it tends to drive up the youth jobless rate relative to others.”
Prof. Skuterud isn’t convinced that immigration is the main driver of higher youth unemployment, pointing instead to the nosedive in job vacancies, along with generally weak economic conditions.
“Youth are struggling and, in my view, that would be happening independently of anything that’s happened on the immigration front in recent years,” he said. “Canada’s economy looks sclerotic.”
Robotic retail workers, like this one slinging popcorn at a Tesla-run diner in Los Angeles, are not yet a widespread threat to humans’ entry-level job prospects.Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
The next theory: artificial intelligence.
Technology companies have made no secret of wanting to consolidate entry-level roles through the use of AI. In a recent report, CIBC Capital Markets found that youth employment is ebbing in industries with high exposure to AI, whereas older and more established workers in those industries seem to be less affected.
There are, however, some holes in the “blame AI” argument. Tech employment has been mired in a long-term funk, and industry job postings were plummeting well before the AI hype-train kicked into overdrive. And the decline in job vacancies is not just a tech story.
“The natural question is, ‘Oh, is it AI?’ Well, I don’t think AI is why entry-level opportunities have shifted away from manufacturing or natural resources,” said Mr. Bernard of Indeed.
Either way, young workers are feeling the pain.
Faraz Khorsandi is a civil-engineering grad who’s still looking for full-time work in his field, to no avail so far.Supplied
Faraz Khorsandi, 28, graduated in 2024 from Lakehead University with a master’s degree in civil engineering. He’s held jobs since then, but he’s been looking for a full-time role in his field for more than a year. “I’m just basically relying on the money that I had set aside for myself. But the game plan is, if I run out of options, I would just start looking for jobs as a server or go back to retail,” he said.
Ms. Hmer, the University of Calgary student, recently caught a break: a part-time job that runs until January. It took immense effort. The 18-year-old has applied for more than 300 jobs over the past year, picking up short-term gigs here and there to stay afloat.
“I think we’re heading into a recession, if not already in one, which makes it difficult for employers to be able to afford people to work,” she said.
Some youth, meanwhile, are taking matters into their own hands.
Natasha Soregaroli, a graduate of McGill University, has struggled to find steady work. But rather than wait around, the 23-year-old decided to write and publish a book (Becoming Me, Again) that helps teenagers navigate the ups and downs of life. She’s since picked up part-time work as a server.
“I didn’t think it would be so much rejection” after graduation, she said. “Eventually I was like, ‘You know what, I’m tired of looking for jobs. I’m just gonna do me, and then see if anything comes from that.’”
Natasha Soregaroli of Vancouver, author of the coming-of-age book Becoming Me, Again, grew weary of the job hunt after her graduation from McGill.Norma Ibarra/The Globe and Mail
Through no fault of their own, youth can be financially harmed by entering the job market at the wrong time.
A 2012 paper co-authored by University of Toronto economist Philip Oreopoulos tracked the earnings of Canadian men who graduated from college during recessions in the 1980s and 1990s. In the first year after graduation, those men earned up to 15 per cent less, on average, than peers who graduated when the unemployment rate was three to four percentage points lower. Moreover, it took a decade for the unlucky graduates to close the earnings gap.
“As they take on that first job with a slightly lower salary, they’ll slowly move toward the better jobs,” said Tammy Schirle, an economics professor at Ontario’s Wilfrid Laurier University. “But that salary is going to take a while to catch up to where they might have been otherwise.”
It would be tempting to look for big, bold solutions to the crisis. But to get youth working, economists say that a critical shift is needed: a turn in the economic cycle.
At the moment, the Canadian economy is hardly the picture of health. But there are some tentative reasons for optimism.
Businesses and consumers aren’t feeling as pessimistic as they were earlier this year, according to various sentiment surveys, because U.S. tariffs haven’t been as devastating as initially feared. (The big caveat is the future existence of the North American trade deal, which thus far has spared Canada from the worst of U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist impulses.)
Canadians, who’ve increasingly turned to local goods in the trade war with Washington, haven’t felt as much purchasing pain as economists predicted, though that could change.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
The federal government is also clamping down on population growth, which includes a drastic reduction in temporary residents over the coming years. The rules for the Temporary Foreign Worker Program have been tightened, and that could force certain businesses – such as restaurants – to look more vigorously for local workers.
It’s unclear, however, what the population slowdown will mean for youth employment. Immigrants are not only workers, but also consumers who create demand in the economy. And while the temporary resident population seems to have peaked, with some already having left the country, youth employment levels have worsened this year.
A healthier job market would also mean more labour movement. Of late, workers have generally stayed put in their jobs, seeking safety during a period of economic turmoil.
As their confidence returns, older workers will feel more comfortable taking on career risks, whether that’s moving up the ranks of their company or switching to another firm. And in turn, their departures will hopefully create a void for young workers to fill.
“Youth need others in the labour market to also be doing well,” said Mr. Bernard. “If things were to get back on track, youth employment would surely benefit.”
Meet four young Canadians in labour limboIman Khwaja, 25
Ms. Khwaja feels disillusioned by higher education altogether. After receiving a master’s degree in English and Spanish at the University of Edinburgh, the Canadian permanent resident has applied to hundreds of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic – but to no avail. “It’s like living in limbo,” she said. “I don’t feel like formal education has paid off as an investment that I made in myself and my career.”
Rónán McGuire-Johnson, 15, had less luck finding work than his mother did at his age.Supplied
Rónán McGuire-Johnson, 15
Mr. McGuire-Johnson applied for several jobs this summer in his hometown of Montreal, but rarely heard back from employers. “My mom pushed me to get a job. Because when she was my age, she had a job at like 14 or 15,” he said. “I don’t think it was as hard for her.” Now, he’s shifting his focus to volunteer opportunities.
Siobhan O’Donoghue just graduated from the University of Guelph-Humber.Supplied
Siobhan O’Donoghue, 22
Ms. O’Donoghue, a recent graduate of the University of Guelph-Humber, has been looking for a job in marketing or public relations since last October. For now, she has a contract position with the university until December. “I’m glad I have something, but it is a little stressful knowing that come the New Year, I have no idea,” she said. “It’s really discouraging just to struggle this much to find something.”
Smera Pattanaik, 19
Ms. Pattanaik applied for more than 70 summer positions, got two interviews and eventually one job offer: marketing intern at the Calgary Outdoor Swimming Pool Association in her hometown. This was her first real job, and with it came plenty of learning opportunities. She learned how to strike the right tone in professional e-mails and get her work approved by higher-ups. “I feel like it was a good first internship to have,” said Ms. Pattanaik, who starts her second-year of undergraduate studies at Western University. “I was able to learn how to function in a corporate world.”
Canada’s youth jobs crisis, in four charts
Three years ago, there were roughly one million job vacancies in Canada, reflecting a surge in labour demand as pandemic restrictions were being cast aside. That number has since been cut in half, with most industries in retreat. In particular, there’s been a swift decline in jobs that require little education or experience – exactly the sort of positions that young people are looking for.
With the labour market in distress, young job seekers are finding themselves unemployed for longer. Roughly one in six unemployed youth have been jobless and looking for longer than six months, according to calculations from Prof. Schirle. That figure appears to be trending up. “If you are a young person trying to find a job, you’re having to spend a much, much longer time looking for one, and that’s where the difficulty is,” she said.
It’s been a rough summer for seasonal work. Summer job postings on Indeed Canada were tracking well below last year’s levels. As part of the site’s analysis, it looked for postings with “summer” (or, in French, “été”) in the title, which included camp counsellors and lifeguards. Quite often, those jobs go to teenagers at the start of their working lives. As of July, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 19 was 20 per cent.
Mr. Bernard of Indeed said it’s instructive to look at the youth employment rate, not solely the unemployment rate. Many young people aren’t bothering to look for work or have stopped looking because they’re discouraged, and thus aren’t counted as unemployed by Statistics Canada. Over the past two years, there’s been a precipitous decline in the youth employment rate, owing to tepid job growth and strong population gains. “The unemployment rate is not capturing the full extent of the change in the youth job market,” said Mr. Bernard.
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