HALIFAX — New data from Statistics Canada shows that while youth unemployment has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding full-time work has been increasingly precarious since the 1980s.
The federal agency says both male and female workers between 15 and 30 were less likely to have a full-time job in 2019 compared with 1989, a period marked by a rise in part-time employment for the age group.
And some 40 years later, the pandemic has caused further upheaval as the percentage of young people not employed or in school rose almost four percentage points from 2019 to 2020.
The federal agency says the unemployment rates for youth rose about six percentage points between 2019 and 2020, which is just about double the rate found with older people.
Both young women and men who weren’t enrolled in full-time study saw their employment rates drop around eight percentage points, while rates for older workers dropped only about four percentage points in the same time.
StatCan says pay rates rose for younger employees, but that phenomenon was driven in large part by a reduction in low-paying jobs that were previously held by younger employees.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2021.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
The Canadian Press