Tag: employment

Youth unemployment: About as bad as it ever was

Mulcair on Youth unemployment
New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on January 30, 2013 (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)

In the most recent Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada (that would be the numbers for December 2012), we find the country has 4.46 million people who are between the ages of 15 and 24. Of those, 2.83 million are “in the labour force”, that is to say, they either have jobs or they are looking for jobs.

StatsCan says 1.28 million of them have a full-time job, 1.16 million have a part-time job while 398,000 of these young people say they can’t find any work. That means the unemployment rate among Canada’s young people in December was 14 per cent. By comparison, the unemployment rate for men 25 years of age and older was 7.6 per cent. For women 25+, it was 5.6 per cent.

This relatively higher unemployment youth rate has been a leading topic for the opposition parties in the House of Commons this week. Indeed, it was the first question the Leader of the Official Opposition, Thomas Mulcair, put to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Question Period on Wednesday. Here’s the exchange from Hansard:

Hon. Thomas Mulcair (Leader of the Opposition, NDP):  Mr. Speaker, more than five years after the recession hit in 2008, Canada’s youth unemployment rate is still sitting at 15%, double the national average.    According to a report by TD Bank, this represents lost earnings of $11 billion to date, which will take a generation to recover. The high youth unemployment rate obviously has significant consequences for our economy.  Why are our young people not one of the Prime Minister‘s four priorities?
Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC):  Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, job creation and economic prosperity are our top priorities. In fact, the Canadian economy has created more than 900,000 net new jobs since the end of the recession. That is the best record of all G7 countries.    There are obviously still challenges in this regard, especially for some young people. That is why our budgets include specific measures for youth. I encourage the NDP to support these measures.
Hon. Thomas Mulcair (Leader of the Opposition, NDP):  Mr. Speaker, young people suffered more than half of all the job losses during the 2008 recession. Nearly 280,000 jobs were lost among Canadian young people and to this day only about 30,000 have been recovered. Almost half of all young people who lose a job are not even eligible for EI. That is in the government’s budget, which we will not support. That situation is made even worse by the Prime Minister’s latest rounds of EI cuts.    Does the Prime Minister understand the devastating impact his failed policies are having on an entire generation of Canadian youth?
Right Hon. Stephen Harper (Prime Minister, CPC):  Of course, Mr. Speaker, it is completely to the contrary. Since the recession ended we have created 900,000 net new jobs in this country, the best track record in the G7. There is no better place for a young person to be today than in Canada.     Challenges obviously still exist in the labour market and for young people. That is why the government has addressed this in a series of budgetary measures, things like the youth employment strategy that has created over 50,000 positions, the Canada summer jobs program and others, which the NDP unfortunately always votes against.

Notably, on Friday, the government will have something to say about the Canada Summer Jobs Program. Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has a press conference scheduled in Ottawa and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews will have the mirror version in Winnipeg.

As we get set for those press conference, here’s a couple of tweets from Laval University economist Stephen Gordon which help add some context to the StatsCan numbers and ensuing political exchange: