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May 11, 2021

Summer jobs still not there for students

All in all, there’s a lot of positive economic news for Canadians these days.

And no small sum of that has to do with employment, a sector in which our nation added 108,700 jobs last month, according to Statistics Canada.

Yet that’s all well and good for adults seeking full-time work ... but what about students?

Last year around this time we discussed how Canada’s first summer of recession was going to take with summer employment for teens and twentysomethings.

The results? Not good. By August of 2009, the unemployment rate of full-time Canuck students between 15 and 24 was 16.4 per cent, but even that was down from 21.1 per cent, the huge rate as it stood at the start of the summer, in May of ’09.

Compare those numbers to pre-recession data -- in 2008, the unemployent rate for youths among those same parameters dipped to as low as 11.4 per cent.

But now that the economy has righted itself – or, at the very least, reached the path to recovery – how are students finding the job market this year?

Well, we won’t have numbers until later in 2010, but by most anecdotal evidence, the problems are still here.

“Companies are still being very, very conservative about hiring,” a University of Calgary career advisor recently told the Calgary Herald.

“We’re just not seeing the employment opportunities rise with the economic recovery.”

Indeed, the pipeline of student jobs seems to be the last to open as the downturn ceases, which is leading to a void of entry-level positions for Canadian youths to fill.

Students: are you having trouble finding work again this year, and parents: are your kids running out of places to drop off their résumés?

By Jason Buckland, MSN Money

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Gordon PowersGordon Powers

A long-time fund company executive, Gordon Powers now heads up the Affinity Group, a financial services consulting firm. Gordon was a personal finance columnist for the Globe & Mail for many years, has taught retirement planning...

Jason BucklandJason Buckland

The modern-day MC Hammer of money, Jason can often be seen spending cash that isn’t his with the efficiency of a Wilt Chamberlain first date. After cutting his teeth as a reporter for the Toronto Sun, he joined the MSN Money team with...