Students are facing a particularly challenging summer job market while recent immigrants are disproportionately affected by weakening labour market conditions in the country, Statistics Canada’s latest employment figures show.
“For the second straight month, Canadian employment was essentially unchanged, disappointing expectations for a modest 25,000 gain,” wrote TD senior economist Leslie Preston in a client note. Of the students between the ages of 15 and 24 returning to school in the fall, 51.3 per cent of them were employed last month, down a staggering 6.8 percentage points from a year ago.
By comparison, the unemployment rate for people born in Canada rose 0.5 percentage points over the last year to 5.6 per cent in the month. Still, the Bank of Canada has signalled that it’s increasingly concerned about job market conditions.