A story-driven look at how the job market has changed from 2019 to 2025 — with real voices, data insights, and honest reflections along the way.
Imagine being a young person stepping into the job market today. You’ve worked hard, built up your skills, and you’re ready to start your career — but finding a job still feels like hitting a wall.
This isn’t just your experience, many youth are facing the same struggle.
Then vs. Now
The Recovery Isn’t Equal
Although the overall unemployment rate has returned to pre-COVID levels, a closer look reveals a different story for young people. Youth unemployment remains much higher, showing that recovery hasn't reached everyone equally. For many young job seekers, the path to stable work is still full of roadblocks.
So Many Are Ready to Work, But the Jobs Aren’t There
Every year, more young people enter the labour force, hopeful to start their careers — but many still struggle to find jobs. This chart illustrates the growing gap between young people seeking employment and those who are actually employed. While the gap narrowed slightly after the pandemic, it has been rising again in recent years — indicating that the job market continues to fall short for youth entering the workforce.
The Hidden Story — Who’s Still Left Behind?
While official employment rates may look strong, they can be misleading. Anyone who works even one hour a week is counted as “employed” — even if they’re underpaid, underemployed, or stuck in part-time roles. Those who’ve stopped looking out of frustration aren’t counted at all. For youth, this paints an especially distorted picture: nearly half of employed young people work part-time, and they consistently make up over a third of Canada’s entire part-time workforce. Stability remains out of reach, even for those who technically have a job.
Fewer Entry-Level Openings
Economic recovery has been uneven, with many companies cutting or freezing entry-level roles—leaving fewer openings for youth entering the job market.
Missed Career-Building Milestones
Young people lost access to internships, part-time jobs, and hands-on learning—due to remote learning and pandemic disruptions. Now, they face job market expectations that don’t match what they were able to practice, often entering their first full-time role later and feeling behind.
Disappearing Youth-Friendly Sectors
Many of the industries that typically hire young people — like retail, recreation, and business — are shrinking, while growing sectors often require more experience. This mismatch makes it especially hard for youth to find jobs right now.
Lasting Mental Health Impacts
Isolation and stress during the pandemic left many youth with lower confidence, increased anxiety, and hesitation about their career paths.
Fewer Paths to Get Started
AI is increasingly handling roles like customer service, data entry, and basic analysis — jobs that traditionally offered young people a way into the workforce. This automation is shrinking the number of true entry-level positions.
AI isn’t neutral
AI is increasingly handling roles like customer service, data entry, and basic analysis — jobs that traditionally offered young people a way into the workforce. This automation is shrinking the number of true entry-level positions.
Biased Algorithms in Hiring
AI tools tend to prioritize hard skills and keywords over soft skills like teamwork, empathy, or creativity — qualities where youth often shine.
First to Go, Last to Return
During mass layoffs, young workers—often in contract or junior roles—were the first to be let go. Recovery has been slow, and many of those roles haven’t come back.
Preference for Experience
Companies now prefer hiring experienced workers who can quickly adapt to evolving tech and hybrid workflows, leaving fewer opportunities for youth still building their skills.
Offshoring and Outsourcing
To cut costs, companies have increasingly offshored positions to countries with lower labor expenses, diminishing domestic job opportunities for youth.
It’s not about coding for everyone. It’s about understanding where your industry is going — and staying open to new tools and ways of working.
Everyone wants experience — but no one wants to give it.
That has to change.
About the Data
All data is sourced from Statistics Canada. While the 2025 data currently includes only January and February, it still offers valuable insights and is suitable for identifying early trends. However, year-over-year comparisons involving 2025 should be interpreted with slight caution due to the partial data (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410001701).
This data is estimated from the Labour Force Survey and may be affected by limitations such as response bias and sampling variability.