05/05/2026
According to Statistics Canada, 1 in 7 young Canadians are out of work.
It's quite unexpected, considering the majority of them have received a decent education and are skilled enough to start some sort of work.
Canada continues to be seen as a country of opportunity — where thousands have migrated and are still in that process, mainly because of a promise for a better life, a higher standard of living and more remunerated work.
So this statistic is saying the opposite. That young people in Canada are finding it hard to get employment. And that's quite serious, thinking of what is coming with AI and further projected job losses.
It begs the question — what are we as a society envisioning to sort this out?
I do feel that we can contribute to building more opportunities for Canadians if we invest our skills in designing and creating alternatives to what we are seeing — especially with the aid of technology.
This is one of the things that keeps driving me forward. At this stage I find myself asking — how can we be on the side of the solution?
Youth unemployment in Canada is climbing fast — with nearly 1 in 7 young people now out of work. A new report shows the rate jumped to 13.8% in 2025, up from 10% just three years earlier, marking the largest increase on record outside a recession.
More than 437,000 Canadians aged 15 to 24 were unable to find jobs last year, with many staying unemployed longer than ever before. The gap between youth and adult unemployment has also widened significantly, now sitting at over 8 percentage points.
The impact is hitting sectors like retail, food service, and hospitality hardest — industries where most young people in cities like Toronto typically find work. Canada’s youth unemployment rate is also now notably higher than in the U.S., raising concerns about longer-term career impacts.