Summer jobs may be hard to fill this year
Young people are shunning previously sought-after summer jobs, just as businesses ramp up for the first normal season in two years.
“Canadian job seekers aren’t as proactively looking for summer jobs as they were pre-pandemic,” a survey from employment site Indeed said.
Summer jobs have been a rite of passage for most teenagers, with many grabbing whatever work they could land to help replenish their bank accounts for the fall and coming school year.
But the Indeed report, based on data from mid-May, found that the percentage of Canadian job searches on its site with the word “summer,” “été,” “temporary” and “seasonal” were down this year (0.95 per cent, or 9.5 per 1,000 searches) compared with the same time last year and in 2019, when 1.23 per cent of searches contained either word.
This possible shift among young job seekers away from seasonal work could spell more trouble for businesses already strapped for employees in a labour market reportedly awash in openings.
There were 826,000 job vacancies nationally as of February 2022 (the most recent data available), according to Statistics Canada.
On Indeed, Canadian summer job postings in mid-May have more than doubled from last year and have increased 87 per cent from 2019, “suggesting the surge has even outpaced the economy-wide trend,” the report said.
The top-five most common postings on the site with “summer” in the title were: customer service representative (12.9 per cent of summer jobs), camp counsellor (9.3 per cent), painter (3.1 per cent), labourer (2.5 per cent) and student assistant (1.9 per cent).
Some might be inclined to conclude that young people are opting not to work this summer. However, Indeed’s data doesn’t seem to bear out that conclusion.
And Statistics Canada’s numbers indicate that employment in the 15-24-yearold category rebounded last summer and now stands at the same level as February 2020, just before the pandemic shut down the economy.
“While fewer youth were working in accommodation and food services than prepandemic, more are now employed in health care and social assistance, retail trade, education and professional services,” the report said.
Indeed researchers also found that searches were up for “interns” and “internships,” suggesting that teens and young adults covet higher aspirations for their summer gigs. There could also be an increased appetite among students for remote work, the report suggested.
Either way, employers might have to make do with the staff they have for the summer of 2022.
“The surge in summer job postings combined with more limited job seeker interest suggest some employers could be out of luck trying to fill seasonal positions,” the report said.