Pity the students who’ve trekked home, tired and hungry, this Thanksgiving. Before they can even pour the gravy, a well-meaning aunt or uncle or grandparent will inquire: “Do you think you’ll be able to find a job in this market?”
The concern isn’t misplaced. On Friday, Statistics Canada shared the latest numbers. Canada shed 68,000 jobs in September. Young people lost 48,000 of them. Workers 55 and over? They held steady. Youth unemployment now sits at 13 per cent, double the national rate. And that’s after 50,000 young people stopped looking for work altogether. Barely half of Canadians aged 15 to 24 have a job. That’s not a blip.
It’s a broken ladder.
A new graduate in Canada can expect to spend longer looking for work now than four years ago and is increasingly likely to end up in a job outside their area of study or training, also according to StatsCan. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has shown little sympathy; last fall, he said young people just aren’t looking “hard enough” for work and suggested they consider the fast-food industry.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. The problem is not the young people. They are not lazy. They are not entitled. Quite the opposite: they are desperate to contribute. This is the most credentialed generation in Canadian history. They’ve grown up in a rapidly changing world: two Trump presidencies, a pandemic, and a trade war. They’ve been waiting for their chance to respond.
Many point fingers at an external force — that new AI tools are wiping out entry-level jobs. Even those as politically divergent as Pete Buttigieg and Steve Bannon have sounded the alarm.
Closer to home, there is something worth looking at that’s within every organization’s control.
Recently, research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York attributed nearly two-thirds of the rise in young graduates’ unemployment to remote work. At one Fortune 500 company in the study, the firm shifted to hiring workers about a decade older. It only went back to hiring new grads after a strict return-to-office policy.
Researchers at the London School of Economics reached a similar conclusion. They did the difficult work of parsing the impact of GenAI and working from home (WFH), which both took off in the 2020s. The result? “Our findings point strongly toward WFH exposure as a better predictor of the decline in relative early-career hiring.”
Remote work is yet another way we’re stacking the deck against the next generation, and blaming AI alone is the easy way out.
This past week, I sat down with a small group of CEOs for a candid conversation about the youth jobs crisis and what businesses can do.
Yes, a slow economy and rapid population growth have made things harder. That isn’t an excuse; it’s the reason to act. We must bring young people back into the very rooms where careers are learned. We must strengthen ties between businesses and schools, create internships, and make mentorship an employer duty.
My own firm takes an “office-first” approach. Our people typically come in five days a week. Flexibility matters, and sometimes it’s necessary. But when it comes at the cost of mentorship the price becomes too high. Skills get young people in the door, but it’s mentorship and belonging that help them climb the ladder.
When young talent is left on the sidelines, we all pay for it. In 2023, youth unemployment cost Canadian governments $4.3 billion in benefits and lost tax revenue, according to Deloitte research. Back then, 322,000 young people were out of work. Today, it’s 401,000.
The C.D. Howe Institute put it bluntly: “Act now, or pay later in lost talent, lower productivity, and a generation that might never quite catch up.” How maddening that we are failing Canada’s young people at the very moment we need their talent and ambition to break from the old order and build something new.
Business leaders across Canada must set a place for the next generation. This Thanksgiving, let the students enjoy their turkey and mashed potatoes. It’s not their job to solve the youth unemployment crisis. It’s ours.
