It's even harder for young people to find jobs, and the unemployment rate proves it

Nearly a year after gradu‐ ating from Carleton Univer‐ sity with a degree in engi‐ neering physics, Surya Nareshan is still struggling to find employment.

Nareshan, who lives in Ot‐ tawa, has applied for dozens of positions since May mostly in software engineer‐ ing and optics. While he's made it through multiple rounds of interviews, includ‐ ing elaborate proficiency testing, he hasn't yet found a permanent job.

"I've applied to 80-plus jobs at this point, and often you don't even hear back," the 24-year-old told CBC News.

With the latest numbers showing that unemployment is up among youth, a sizeable share of the increase in

Canada's overall unemploy‐ ment rate since April last year is due to new job seek‐ ers - young people and re‐ cent graduates like Nareshan - who are spending more time looking for work, ac‐ cording to an analysis by RBC Economics.

Nareshan said he ex‐ pected that paying higher tu‐ ition for a technical degree would give him a leg up in the job market.

Now, even just saying that he's unemployed makes him feel down.

"I guess there's just like a sunk-cost fallacy at this point for me," he said. "Eventually I'll just transition to another direction if nothing works out. But hopefully that won't be the case."

New job seekers behind unemployment: economist

StatsCan data released Friday showed that youth were em‐ ployed at the lowest level since February 2012, barring the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There has been almost no employment growth among youth between the ages of 15 and 24 since December 2022.

An RBC report published in January stated that while Canada's population has been growing quickly, it's stu‐ dents and new graduates dri‐ ving the increase in the un‐ employment rate, not new‐ comers.

Friday's fresh data high‐ lighted that youth are "bear‐ ing the brunt" of the labour market downturn, RBC

economist Carrie Freestone, who co-authored the report, told CBC News.

Since April 2023, "half of the increase in the unem‐ ployment rate came from job seekers who were previously not in the labour force be‐ cause they were in school," Freestone said.

WATCH | How this em‐ ployment program is helping new Canadians achieve their dreams:

Some are recent univer‐ sity graduates, while the oth‐ ers are students or recent high school graduates, she added.

Freestone noted that since mid-2023, "we've got‐ ten a lot of data points that were almost at odds with each other."

The unemployment rate has been rising overall, but with Canada's population growing at its fastest rate since 1957, the data still shows job gains more or less month to month, she said.

"What that means right now is [that], relative to the size of the labour force, the portion of participants in Canada who are unemployed is rising," she said.

While only part of the ris‐ ing unemployment rate can be explained by layoffs, there's been a significant up‐ tick in job cuts, an accelera‐ tion that started in March, Freestone said.

"So the labour market is definitely softening ... and students are definitely still in a position where they're searching for jobs for longer," she added.

Nareshan, the Carleton graduate, said he might pur‐ sue a master's degree to boost his resume - he sus‐ pects that, with so many lay‐ offs across the tech sector, he could be competing with more experienced candi‐ dates who've recently lost their jobs.

"After conducting inter‐ views, I'll reach out for feed‐ back. And there's been nu‐ merous times where I've lost out to somebody who's had literally five years of experi‐ ence or has a master's de‐ gree and all these other things," Nareshan said.

In the meantime, he said he's making money through freelance work and tutoring gigs. He might have to move back in with parents, and while wants to continue living in Canada, he might look to the U.S. or elsewhere if he can't find a job here.

"A lot of us new grads are expected to have more expe‐ rience that we don't have," he said.

Prepping young people for lengthy job search

Over at Toronto Metropolitan University, 21-year-old Claire Fitzpatrick is in her final year of a social work degree. With graduation on the horizon, she's applied for more than 50 entry-level jobs since last month, but has yet to land a full-time permanent job.

"I thought a degree in so‐ cial work was practical. It is a job type of degree," Fitz‐ patrick told CBC News. "So I thought getting a degree in social work versus something similar like psychology or so‐ ciology, it would be a bit easi‐ er for me to find a job after graduating."

Right now, Fitzpatrick works at the University's Ca‐ reer Co-op and Student Suc‐ cess Centre, which helps stu‐ dents who are looking for jobs and planning their ca‐ reer. According to its asso‐ ciate director Wincy Li, the of‐ fice continues to meet with students long after they've received a diploma.

"The reason why we have a five-year alumni policy is because we understand that sometimes it takes a while for students to get a job after they graduate," though that sometimes depends on which industry they're apply‐ ing into, Li told CBC News.

"I think over the last cou‐ ple of years, what we've seen is a lot of students express‐ ing more anxiety, [a] height‐ ened sense of anxiety as a re‐ sult of the pandemic, but al‐ so [due to] a lot of the economic conditions that are constantly evolving."

For her part, Fitzpatrick wants to work with adults who have disabilities. She says she's broadened her job search far beyond that - ap‐ plying on job boards on LinkedIn and Indeed, and by reaching out directly to spe‐ cific organizations.

"It's especially important because I have Type 1 dia‐ betes, and once I graduate, I'm off my parents health in‐ surance. So having health in‐ surance, even compared to a wage, is very important for me just because of the cost of my medical supplies."

She expects that applican‐ ts with more experience, or those who have a graduate degree, are getting the jobs for which she's applied. Fitz‐ patrick hopes to go to gradu‐ ate school eventually, but she says its competitive nature means "you need to be at the top of your class to make it into most programs."

"I did not predict it would be this challenging for me to find an entry level role at all," she said.

"There's gotta be more that can be done because there are all these very quali‐ fied young graduates who can't get a job."