Summer 2025 is shaping up to be just as punishing as summer 2024 was for young people seeking work. Just a few years ago, young people had their pick of jobs in the hot labour market in 2022, recouping huge employment losses they had experienced during the pandemic.
Youth unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 years is now 13.7 per cent—up 0.9 percentage points from March last year and 4.5 percentage points from the March before that. The youth employment rate has been on a downward trend too, dropping by over five percentage points in two short years.
Students and new graduates have taken the biggest hit—driving the recent increase in Canada’s unemployment rate. In response to growing economic uncertainty this past year, companies have been scaling back new hires and offering more part-time work. Young people can’t find work, can’t find coop placements or even volunteer gigs.
And now, the Trump trade war. Economic uncertainty has surged portending even greater job losses and missed opportunities.
New entrants including young people already make up more than half (52 per cent) of the unemployed, their share now 4.2 percentage points higher than before the pandemic. We can expect these numbers to grow alongside the workers in export-exposed and export-adjacent industries subject to punishing American tariffs.
Why aren’t we talking about the dire economic prospects confronting young people?
A number of commentators have commented on the huge gaps in this election’s policy debate—on health care, climate change, immigration and social justice. Even on trade and the existential threat the U.S. administration poses to Canada’s economic and political sovereignty, the voters have been presented with rhetoric and vague promises.
Canadians tell pollsters that jobs and the economy rank at the top of their list of concerns—yet the policy prescriptions on offer remain narrowly focused on the resource and manufacturing sectors and military procurement.
There is absolutely a need to leverage Canada’s considerable strengths to chart an alternative economic course—as the CCPA has argued for years in the Alternative Federal Budget. Canada needs bold ideas for a strong, independent, and decarbonized economy that places “well-being, resilience and sustainability above private profits.”
But such a policy program must also take up the dire economic challenges young people are now facing in the context of sky-high rents, tuition and food costs. The rate of inflation may have eased, but the lines at food banks haven’t.
The potential impact of this generational crisis is enormous. Compared to previous generations, young adults are facing a future of lower earnings, more employment precarity and economic hardship. They are also burdened with higher levels of debt. In 2020, the average student loan debt in Canada was $16,700 for college graduates and $30,600 for those with bachelor’s degrees. These figures are most certainly higher today.
Indigenous youth, racialized youth and young people with disabilities are especially vulnerable since they tend to face labour market obstacles even in the best of times.
The situation of international students is also dire. Provincial and federal policy failures expose students to unsafe housing and food insecurity, exorbitant education fees, harassment and exploitation in the workplace, and increased mental health challenges.
Where do the parties stand?
Why has the crisis impacting young people received so little attention in political platforms and media coverage? Do people believe that economic hardship and unemployment is a rite of passage for young people, they’ll just bounce back from successive losses? That our economy won’t be negatively impacted?
Governments, post-secondary institutions, and employers need to be doing much more—not only to make education more affordable, but to lower employment barriers and to tackle the growing generational divide between good jobs and bad jobs. There’s a steep cost to pay for sidelining young people.
All of the election platforms are finally available. They spend little time on the pressing challenges confronting young people. The Conservative Party, for example, is promising to expand access to language exchange programs, Junior Rangers, and the Ready, Willing and Able program that serves young people with disabilities.
Proposed Conservative infrastructure investments will potentially open up new job opportunities in the trades. At the same time, large-scale cuts to government services will close off a key source of good jobs for young people—notably young women and others confronting employment barriers.
The NDP has a broader package of program reforms, expanding services and income support for lower income households—including young people. These include changes to the Employment Insurance system to ensure that low-wage, precarious workers have better access to support and related training, a national rent control regime, and a price cap on grocery essentials.
This week, the NDP announced its intention to establish a $500 million Youth Climate Corps as part of its Build Canada Plan “to train and employ thousands of young people in climate emergency response, community resilience, and renewable energy projects across the country.”
The Liberal Party also plans to create a Youth Climate Corps pilot, delivering on a promise in Budget 2024 to provide paid skills training for young people to respond to climate emergencies and strengthen community resilience. In addition, a Liberal government will expand the Student Work Placement Program, the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS), Canada Summer Jobs, and the Canadian Service Corps “where appropriate.”
Do these proposals meet the moment?
The existing patchwork of public, non-profit and for-profit services serves young people poorly, especially those who are no longer in school and/or those who face large barriers in accessing employment. The government youth training and job-creation programs that are available do not begin to meet the need—as evidenced by high youth unemployment rates creeping ever higher.
Yet the platform proposals on offer by the Liberals and Conservatives are modest to say the least. Much rests on the expected boost to employment tied to their respective plans to expand Canada’s housing supply and to jump start private sector investment.
The billions of dollars in tax cuts that the major parties are promising will deliver little to young people and other low-income households, while undercutting the ability of the government to implement meaningful policy change.
One huge gap in the discussion is post-secondary education. The parties do not even acknowledge the scope of the crisis confronting the post secondary sector. The systemic underfunding of post-secondary institutions is not only driving up the costs of education for young people, it is compounding the difficult employment situation young people face and thwarting the expansion of “good jobs” in Canada’s labour market.
Make no mistake. As the baby boom generation retires, Canada will need to rely on the next generation of workers—those who were born here and the many we welcome from abroad. This is precisely the time we need to be investing in young people and their futures.
