‘Just being ghosted’: Canada’s youth face deepening job crisis

OTTAWA - Ms Sheena Ngigi, age 24, assumed her biochemistry degree from the University of Alberta would mean a relatively easy path to a job.

Mr Mathias Ashaba, also 24, wanted to leverage his business degree after immigrating from Uganda in 2024.

Both have applied to dozens of jobs they should be qualified for. And, at every turn, they say they have been rebuffed – if they even hear anything at all.

Ms Ngigi has pivoted to applying for receptionist and restaurant gigs in the meantime, though still without any luck, while after almost a year of trying, Mr Ashaba managed to find work as a janitor at a public school.

“You spend hours a day looking for jobs,” Ms Ngigi said. “People who have been in the industry for a very long time are going for jobs that should be going to people just out of school.”

Across Canada, the number of young people with jobs has collapsed to the lowest level since 1998, excluding the years impacted by Covid-19.

Employment growth for 16- to 24-year-olds was the weakest on record in July, according to calculations by economists at credit union Alberta Central. The country’s youth unemployment rate stands at 15 per cent.

While the direct impact of US tariffs on Canada has been limited to certain industries, concerns over US President Donald Trump’s trade war have prompted companies to curtail hiring, which tends to hurt people looking for their first job more.

That is after a pandemic-era surge in immigration boosted the number of people competing for entry-level roles, just as the rise of artificial intelligence and a cooling economy led white-collar employers to cut positions. And with US trade negotiations ongoing, fears of an economic downturn remain.

“Whether it’s making new investment or hiring a lot of workers, there’s just no appetite for businesses to do that given the enormous uncertainty we’re still dealing with these days,” said Ms Claire Fan, an economist at Royal Bank of Canada. “It’s the uncertainty that’s freezing hiring demand right now.”

Low supply

While the overall Canadian economy has held up fairly well in the face of Mr Trump’s trade war, the weakness in the youth job market is a potential sign that growth is weakening, a key consideration for the Bank of Canada as it weighs when to cut interest rates.

Canada’s unemployment rate has crept up to 6.9 per cent, from 6.6 per cent at the beginning of 2025, according to Statistics Canada data. The share of job seekers who have been out of work for more than six months is the largest since 1998. 

With fewer jobs to go around, some older workers are competing for the kind of entry-level positions typically taken up by those just starting out, making the competition more fierce.

Mr Ashaba, the business graduate who lives in Toronto, estimates that he applied to more than 30 entry-level jobs in everything from customer service to construction.

“I found it very difficult,” he said. “Employers required experience, but how can I get experience without a job?”

‘Career scarring’

As companies use automation to cut costs and replace jobs, young graduates are finding themselves settling for roles they are overqualified for. 

“We have engineering graduates coming to us who can’t get a job in the better fields,” said Mr Tim Lang, the chief executive officer of Youth Employment Services in Toronto.

“We have seen a higher sense of desperation from so many more youth who have been applying to, in some cases, hundreds of jobs and not getting a response back.”

The consequences of this trend could reverberate for years to come. 

Ms Carrie Axten, who helps young people break into the job market at Prospect Human Services, an employment charity in Alberta, warns of “career scarring” that can impact an employee’s long-term prospects when their first job comes too late.

And entry-level jobs are critical for young people to develop skills like time management and teamwork, she said. That is particularly true for high school students. 

Tara Alex-Hamah, a 15-year-old in Toronto, estimates she has applied to 50 positions, from grocery stores to McDonald’s to the library. She just wants a job so she can earn some pocket money and save for university, but now she is about ready to give up.

“It’s kind of disappointing because you’re not even getting a rejection e-mail, you’re just being ghosted basically,” she said in an interview before the start of her third year of high school in September. “Right now I think I’m just going to focus on school.” BLOOMBERG