‘20 other people just like you’: Why Toronto youth are struggling to find jobs

Getting a job is not the same as it used to be, a young job seeker told CBC Toronto at an employment fair in Oakwood Village earlier this week.

“You think, oh, you put your resume out there, you take initiative and make yourself seem like a good candidate, you’ll get hired … In the last couple of years it’s taken a 180,” Micah Goldsilver said.

Statistics Canada reported 84,000 jobs lost across the country in February, one of the worst monthly job losses the agency has reported in years, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic. Youth unemployment ticked over 14 per cent.

Over half of the losses were categorized as youth jobs, pushing unemployment among young people in Ontario to more than two per cent higher than Canada's.

“You can have experience, you can have the proper qualifications, but now everyone needs experience with qualifications,” Goldsilver said. “There will be 20 other people just like you, lining up to get that same job.” 

Alicia Hall is the executive director of the NIA Centre for the Arts, based in Oakwood Village, which hosted the job fair on Tuesday. She hopes the fair will help young people get their foot in the door with employers.

Hall said she hears from young people feeling worried about finding a job at a time of skyrocketing costs of living and growing youth unemployment.

“They're feeling really insecure,” she said. “Their finances, their financial outlook as well as their outlook about the future. They don’t necessarily feel sure that they’re going to be able to afford … the lifestyle that their parents have been able to afford.”

At the job fair, some attendees spoke about struggling to find a position that wasn’t temporary, while others commuted long distances since they were not able to find a job locally.

If young people don’t get a job early, then it can reduce their overall productivity and how much they earn in future careers, said Rafael Gomez, director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto, as well as the CIBC chair of youth employment.

He says today’s youth need jobs so they can stimulate economic growth tomorrow.

“They're going to be the ones that will buy their first home, buy their first car. All of that stimulates other economic activity,” Gomez said.

Gomez said Canada’s slowing economy is causing older labour workers to be laid off from their jobs, meaning those experienced workers are now  competing with youth for the same entry-level jobs.

“What happens is entry-level jobs that normally go to youth who don't have experience — guess what? You hire someone now with experience. Why? Because they're unemployed too,” Gomez said.