TORONTO – Ontario is becoming one of the toughest places in Canada for youth to land a job, says a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario office (CCPA Ontario).
The Young and the Jobless: Youth Unemployment in Ontario [2]shows that five years after the global economic meltdown, youth employment levels remain significantly depressed, tracking much lower than the national average.
“Ontario’s youth joblessness problem isn’t simply a post-recession hangover – it’s becoming chronic,” says the report’s author, Waterloo academic Sean Geobey.
“The joblessness trends suggest something new is at play: the labour market for young workers in Ontario is even more inhospitable than it was following the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s.”
Among the report’s key findings:
- In 2013, the unemployment rate for Ontario youth aged 15-24 fluctuated between 16% and 17.1%, trending above the Canadian range of 13.5% to 14.5% and placing Ontario as the worst province outside Atlantic Canada for high youth unemployment.
- The employment gap between youth and older workers in Ontario is now at an all-time high, with only one in two youth fortunate enough to be holding down a paying job.
- Windsor, Oshawa, Brantford and London stand out as youth unemployment hotspots: their youth unemployment rate is over 20%, similar to the European Union rates.
- Toronto’s youth employment rate – the measure that determines how many youth actually have jobs – is 43.5%. That’s the worst employment rate of any Ontario region and it may be driving some youth out of the province in search of work.
- Toronto also gets the prize for having the largest gap between youth and adult employment in the province, at 21.8%. That’s the highest it’s ever been.
“A thorough examination of the data indicates that youth joblessness in Ontario isn’t just a byproduct of the 2008-09 recession – it is a chronic problem. And it’s about to become the new normal if we don’t start addressing it,” says Trish Hennessy, director of the CCPA Ontario office.
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For more information please contact Trish Hennessy, CCPA-Ontario: 416-525-4927 or [email protected] [3].