Source: toronto.citynews.ca
Landing a job isn’t as easy as it was a few years ago, especially for younger Canadians, as the labour market continues to loosen.
As new graduates enter the workforce over the next few weeks, they are likely to face challenges getting their foot in the door and must be prepared to effectively communicate what they bring to the company.
“They have to be ready to interview, to showcase their soft skills and be able to handle questions,” said Sandra Lavoy, regional director at Robert Half.
“Be prepared for tough questions.”
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey showed employment among youth aged 15 to 24 fell one per cent in March, continuing a troubling trend of essentially no net employment growth among young people for more than a year.
Meanwhile, the jobless rate among youth rose to 12.6 per cent. That’s the highest since September 2016, excluding the pandemic shutdown years of 2020-21.
While there’s a large pool of job seekers out there, about half of the uptick in the broader unemployment rate over the last year can be explained by students and new graduates looking for work, said Carrie Freestone, an economist with RBC Economics. (This includes post-secondary and high school students looking for part-time work, high school graduates looking for work and post-secondary graduates looking for work.)