{"id":290227,"date":"2025-10-09T21:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290227\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:23:11","slug":"young-people-are-struggling-to-find-work-older-people-saying-try-harder-isnt-helping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290227\/","title":{"rendered":"Young people are struggling to find work. Older people saying \u2018try harder\u2019 isn\u2019t helping"},"content":{"rendered":"

LISTEN | Young Canadians struggling to find work:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Current23:02What’s it like to be a new grad and apply to 1000+ jobs<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough job market for young people just starting out right now, but one recent graduate says that doubt and dismissal from older generations isn\u2019t making it any easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really pushes my buttons when other generations say that we’re doing something wrong,\u201d Sami Rasheed told The Current\u2019s<\/a> Matt Galloway.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I\u2019ve had] people telling me to do the things that I’ve already been doing and almost like not believing that I’m really putting my full effort in, or that I must be making some silly mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rasheed graduated from a University of Toronto business program last year. He performed well both academically and during work placements, and was told he shouldn\u2019t have any trouble finding work upon graduating.<\/p>\n

But a year later, he says he\u2019s sent out roughly 1,100 applications \u2014 but he only received about a dozen replies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of mornings just dreading getting up and putting in another eight hours applying to jobs,\u201d Rasheed said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to live your life when you don’t have money, you don’t have direction, and it seems like all the doors are just closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

WATCH | What’s behind the surge in youth unemployment?:<\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

How did the Gen Z job market get so bleak?<\/p>\n

Gen Z graduates between the ages of 15 and 24 are facing the highest unemployment rate the country has seen in decades, apart from the pandemic. CBC’s Paula Duhatschek breaks down what\u2019s behind the surge and what it could mean for a whole generation of Canadians.<\/p>\n

After a year of sending applications, Rasheed recently landed a six-month contract with a bank, which he hopes will lead to something more permanent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s definitely a step up from where I was, even if it’s not where I expected I’d be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rasheed isn\u2019t alone. Figures from Statistics Canada show that the unemployment rate for people aged 15-24 stood at 14.5 per cent in August<\/a>, the highest it\u2019s been since 2010. Figures from July show that just under 54 per cent of young Canadians were working<\/a>, the lowest rate since 1998. (Both comparisons exclude the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic).<\/p>\n

‘Young people are not lazy’<\/p>\n

Last month, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that young people struggling to find work aren’t looking “hard enough.”<\/a><\/p>\n

But economics professor Mikal Skuterud, who teaches hundreds of students at the University of Waterloo, says younger people aren\u2019t to blame for the problems they\u2019re facing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung people are not lazy,\u201d he told The Current. \u201cThey are as ambitious and hardworking as any generation has ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the main issue is that fewer new jobs are being created, as employers grapple with trade uncertainty. Data suggests sectors most exposed to U.S. tariffs have been hit hardest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[In 2022], we had one million job vacancies in this country<\/a>. We are now down to below half a million. That is unprecedented. We’ve never seen such a swing in Canadian history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat clearly is going to mean that for new labour market entrants \u2026 it’s going to be much, much harder to get that first job.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said older generations should also consider the economic landscape that young people are facing today, from the high cost of living to a housing market that feels out of reach.<\/p>\n

Young workers are also facing the uncertainty caused by the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), but he said it\u2019s hard to yet determine who the winners and losers will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | What’s the impact on young people’s prospects?:<\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

What the rise in youth unemployment means for young Canadians<\/p>\n

This summer has been a challenge for teenage job-seekers, and the Canadian labour market shows no signs of improvement for the fall. Desjardins economist Kari Norman, author of a report on youth unemployment, discusses the implications for young people’s economic prospects.<\/p>\n

That said, he thinks young people should try to take some solace in the fact that Canada has seen unemployment rates like this before, adding that \u201c14.5 per cent unemployment in a business downturn is not exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that it feels like it’s incredibly discouraging \u2026 but I think it’s also important to put where we’re at in perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw this in the early ’90s. We saw it in 2008. We saw in 2014 \u2026 and that will turn around. I’m very optimistic because history tells us it will.”<\/p>\n

Make yourself stand out: expert<\/p>\n

Gaby Kurta graduated with a legal assistant diploma from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also heard comments that her generation could be working harder \u2014 but says she\u2019s applied for 70 jobs in the last couple of months. She hasn’t been successful, and is working retail to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to hear that because, of course, all of us are putting in as much effort as we can to get these jobs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her advice to her fellow graduates is to just keep applying, because she believes it will eventually pay off.<\/p>\n

Skuterud shares that optimism, suggesting that while young people wait it out, they should invest in skills that increase their chances of landing a job.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking yourself special in a labour market \u2014 in the sense that you have scarce skills that other people don’t have \u2014 that’s your best bet,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISTEN | Young Canadians struggling to find work: The Current23:02What’s it like to be a new grad and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,420,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-290227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115346316398267056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}