Youth unemployment to cost the Canadian economy $18.5 billion by 2034 if not effectively addressed, according to a report by the company Deloitte
Youth unemployment in Canada has surged to 14.2 per cent, the highest it’s been in a decade, according to a recent report by Deloitte, commissioned by King’s Trust Canada. The report highlights that over 850,000 Canadians aged 15 to 29 are unemployed and lack post-secondary education or training, a gap that could cost the Canadian economy $18.5 billion in GDP by 2034 and over $5 billion in lost government revenue.
Beyond economic consequences, the report outlines significant social costs. Youth who experience long-term unemployment are more likely to face mental health challenges and reduced quality of life.
King’s Trust Canada, a charity founded by King Charles III, aims to tackle barriers to youth employment. The organization provides free skills training, networking opportunities and work experience to help young people prepare for the workforce.
King's Trust CEO Farah Mohamed discussed the report's findings and potential implications for the future of Canada's youth and workforce.
"We can't afford to give up $18.5 billion to our GDP . . . we also have to look at the loss of government revenue. Over the next ten years, the government could be giving up $5 billion and just those two numbers alone combined with the fact that if you do nothing you're gonna lose 226,000 jobs . . . these are the data points that I think should wake people up," said Mohamed.
Over the next ten years, the government could be giving up $5 billion . . . if you do nothing you're gonna lose 226,000 jobs . . . these are the data points that I think should wake people up.
Farah Mohamed, CEO
King's Trust Canada
Mohamed also emphasized the normalized disparity in youth unemployment. “Youth unemployment is twice that of adult unemployment. It’s always been that way, but it’s not acceptable,” said Mohamed.
The report attributes the rising youth unemployment rate to a shortage of job opportunities. Mohamed notes that many entry-level position now require applicants to have an undefined degree and several years of prior experience, further creating challenges for young people to enter the workforce.
Younger people, particularly those seeking their first jobs with little to no prior experience, are facing the greatest challenge. In October 2024, Statistics Canada reported that the unemployment rate for Canadians aged 18 to 24 in October stood at 12.8 per cent, more than double the 5.4 per cent for adults aged 25 and older.
Mohamed said the employment gap is also driven by a lack of skills development. “Employers don’t have time to teach skills like resiliency, teamwork, creativity and communication, but they expect young people to have them,” said Mohamed.
Employers don’t have time to teach skills like resiliency, teamwork, creativity and communication, but they expect young people to have them.
Farah Mohamed, CEO
King's Trust Canada
Additionally, the report states that vulnerable groups, including individuals with disabilities, Indigenous peoples and racialized communities, face even higher unemployment rates.
Mohamed said addressing youth unemployment requires collaboration between governments and corporations. She called on the government to incentivize employers to hire young workers, update employment laws to reflect today’s job market and apply a youth-focused lens to policy decisions.
"The King's trust can do its work. But the report calls for all of us to do things differently," said Mohamed.
Mohamed also called for corporations to be a part of the solution.
"There's a need for corporations to really try to remove all the barriers that they put up for young people that prevent them from gaining the experience they need to build their careers," she said.
Nimra Rizvi, a fourth-year political science student at McMaster, shared their perspective on the challenges of youth unemployment. "Minimum wage jobs that you could have gotten so easily in high school are so competitive now," said Rizvi.
Minimum wage jobs that you could have gotten so easily in high school are so competitive now.
Nimra Rizvi, fourth-year political science student
McMaster University
Rizvi also pointed out the challenges of securing a job after graduating. "Growing up, you were told that a bachelor's degree would be enough to get you started in whatever field. But now you need a master's degree, you need more postgraduate education in order to get a job position," said Rizvi.
For students struggling to find current and future employment, the McMaster Student Success Centre provides support through career counselling. This service offers students the opportunity to work with career counsellors to develop effective job search strategies and create future plans, equipping them with the tools they need to thrive in their professional journey.
The Student Success Centre also offers workshops on financial literacy and hosts job fairs throughout the school year, providing students with opportunities to enhance their financial skills and connect with potential employers.
For more information on the report, visit the King's Trust Canada website.
Despite what students may think, McMaster’s restrictive AI guidelines will best prepare students for the workforce of tomorrow
McMaster’s AI advisors have not had an easy job dealing with the rise of AI. When Chat-GPT was first released for public use, the university had to quickly throw together provisional guidelines which were mostly prohibitive of the use of AI. Out of nowhere, a huge threat to honest academic work became available to all students giving the academic institutions little time to consider how to respond.
McMaster’s response has taken time, but the beginning of this year has marked the introduction of guidelines no longer considered provisional.
These guidelines are unpopular with many and the consulting process created rifts between the McMaster Students Union and the university administration. MSU president Jovan Popovic suggested that students need to be prepared to work with AI in a future workforce in which the use of AI is prevalent. Meanwhile, the university was greatly concerned about the significant risks that AI poses to university pedagogy by undermining student engagement with their coursework and learning
The final guidelines have fallen firmly on the side of mitigating educational risks, without a single mention of the AI skills that might be required for the future of work. While this may disappoint student union activists who fought for more permissive AI use, I think the guidelines’ are best for students entering the uncertain AI future.
The guidelines’ ultimate goal is to maintain the integrity of the university learning process. This process is one based on learning the methods relevant to any given field of study, rather than simple content-based learning. These processes are under threat by generative AI’s capabilities to produce text indistinguishable from that written by a human, to analyze data and to interpret primary sources.
AI’s abilities to do this work convincingly represents a fundamental threat to intellectual labour. The MSU’s position, informed by this belief, is that students need to familiarize themselves with using generative AI in order to prepare themselves for a workplace dominated by AI use. But this fails to account for experts' varied views on what a future with AI might look like.
Without denying its potential to change the landscape of work, MIT Sloan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's business school, has discussed what the direct impacts on workers might be. It suggests that subject-matter experts and experienced employees will be increasingly required to work alongside AI, judging the quality of its output and the appropriateness of its use.
McKinsey, a globally recognized management consultancy, argues that humans will still have to check the work of AI to ensure it is correct and accurate. So, maintaining and fostering our abilities to write, validate sources and ensure the quality of our work remains essential. Considering the errors that AI can and does make, AI is best used for well-defined, job and company specific tasks such as searching through proprietary data. It is vital that we maintain and foster our creative and critical thinking abilities and not blindly trust AI with such important tasks.
McMaster’s new guidelines’ continued focus on teaching core skills is best suited to creating knowledgeable experts, ready to excel at tasks they are assigned and who understand where AI might help their work and the importance of verifying the accuracy of AI's outputs. Additionally the new guidelines’ promotion of the long, repetitive process of learning will create students prepared for a workforce defined by lifelong learning.
I believe McMaster’s current guidelines, old-school as they are, are in fact the best model for creating students ready to work alongside AI, regardless of how it may develop. Anyone can write a prompt for Chat-GPT, only well educated experts will be truly prepared for the work leftover.
Statistics Canada data suggests that persons with disabilities, Indigenous and racialized identities are vastly underrepresented in workforces in Canada. To help marginalized students and alumni seek employment, the Student Success Centre launched the Career Access Program for Students, a suite of services offered in collaboration with the Student Accessibility Centre and Maccess.
CAPS focuses on skill building and career development through career advising, strategic goal setting and personal branding. Students also work on creating an employment action plan that is customized to meet their needs.
The program is for students and alumni that identify as persons with disabilities, First Nations, Metis and Inuit persons, members of racialized communities, First Generation students and LGBTQA2S+ students.
Students and alumni can book one-on-one appointments through OSCARPlus, participate through events, or utilize online resources to learn about financial accommodations for students with disabilities, wellness support services, a transit accessibility initiative and campaigns to promote diverse practices.
The SSC also introduced a new position.
Katherine Hesson-Bolton started her position as the diversity employment coordinator in July 2018.
Her initial goals were finding her way around campus alongside first-year students, reading reports, developing a network with faculties, students, campus services and partners and identifying service gaps and needs.
Hesson-Bolton’s role places her in a unique position as a connecting link between McMaster and the greater community.
She regularly meets with employers in hopes of coming away with jobs and opportunities for students while also having conversations around diversity hiring and removing barriers.
She then is able to provide employers with on-campus and external resources, such as ones coming from Pride at Work Canada, to help them address diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
“It’s really about having a conversation with the employer to hear what their needs are, what McMaster students’ needs are, and then finding that fit… So it’s really about relationship building on both sides,” said Hesson-Bolton.
“It also comes back to reaching back to those campus partners, whether it’s student accessibility services or Indigenous services,” said Hesson-Bolton. “I also work a lot with and involve students on campus because it’s really important to get students’ perspective and their feedback.”
Hesson-Bolton also strategizes with employees on branding. Some employers have identified that they want to focus on inclusion, but do not know how to identify and address the needs of new employees.
“You may have employers who will want to hire students with disabilities. And the question back is ‘have you thought about how your workplace is set up? What are your policies, procedures, your staff education, so that the new employee feels included?’,” said Hesson-Bolton.
Hesson-Bolton starts the conversation by discussing meeting the needs of new hires, whether that be identifying the accommodations that would allow persons with disabilities to work, establishing prayer spaces or recognizing that always having social events in establishments that serve alcohol may exclude some individuals.
Hesson-Bolton also has important conversations with students and alumni around disclosure in the workplace and accommodation plans.
She also provides a space for students to talk about their frustrations, experiences with discrimination, while also connecting them to mentors and peers with similar lived experience.
There is a strong need for university services to support students entering the workforce and address the barriers to diversity and inclusion. The CAPS program and the role of the diversity employment coordinator are just getting started.
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By: Lauren Beals
When she was a student, Hoda ElMaraghy ventured where no woman had before. In 1976, she became the first woman to earn a PhD in mechanical engineering at McMaster. What followed was an esteemed career laced with achievement and novelty. This includes becoming the first woman to be appointed as faculty member in mechanical engineering at McMaster, and the first woman to hold the position of Dean of Engineering when she joined the University of Windsor in 1994.
She has since published over 380 papers in professional journals, holds a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Manufacturing Systems and is currently a fellow of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the International Academy for Production Engineering.
On Jan. 20 her incredible achievements were recognized as one of 25 Order of Ontario recipients, the highest honors in the province. ElMaraghy was the only engineer recognized amongst this year’s recipients.
“I was indeed thrilled,” said ElMaraghy. “It was great to have my work and leadership acknowledged […] being invested in the Order of Ontario is one of my proudest moments.”
Like any true pioneer, ElMaraghy was left to navigate a challenging field in a time when there were very few females in engineering. “At the beginning of my career there were very few women engineers, and being the first [PhD and faculty] was certainly a novelty. There was a great pressure to prove one’s abilities.”
Despite the odds, ElMaraghy overcame preconceptions by demonstrating excellence in her abilities, going on to become the founding director of the Flexible Manufacturing Systems here at McMaster and establishing herself as a powerhouse in manufacturing and systems design.
Named Hamilton’s Woman of the Year in the Workplace in 1990, ElMaraghy has seen the positive influence women leaders can have across genders. “Women role models in academia and in the corporate world are very important not only for women but also for men who are expected to work with and sometimes be supervised by women,” said ElMaraghy.
When she was a student, Hoda ElMaraghy ventured where no woman had before. In 1976, she became the woman graduate to earn a PhD in mechanical engineering at McMaster. What followed was an esteemed career laced with achievement and novelty.
Right now, she serves as a faculty member as an engineering professor at the University of Windsor and is a collaborator with the Canadian government. ElMaraghy thinks should play a crucial role in the advancement of women in academia and the workplace. “Universities and employers must put in place measures to remove clear and hidden barriers for women’s progress in these fields and promote equal pay for work of equal value,” she said. “They must offer them leadership training and opportunities for progress.”
Looking ahead, ElMaraghy is confident that women can continue to succeed in emerging STEM fields but deserve the right blend of advocacy.
“Women are capable of tackling many challenges in engineering but they need more support, encouragement and recognition,” she said.
Photo Credit: University of Windsor
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