New data from Statistics Canada revealed that even before youth unemployment rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was harder for them to find full-time work compared to the 1980s.

According to the federal agency, men and women ages 15 to 30 were less likely to get a full-time job in 2019 than in 1989, a period marked by growth in part-time work. for this age group.

Nearly 40 years later, the pandemic has sparked further turmoil among young people, with the proportion of people neither working nor in education increasing by nearly four percentage points from 2019 to 2020.

The federal agency says the youth unemployment rate rose by about six percentage points between 2019 and 2020, twice the rate recorded among the elderly.

Young men and women who did not attend school full-time saw their employment rates drop by about eight percentage points, while rates for older workers fell by only about four percentage points at the same time.

According to Statistics Canada, wage rates for young employees have increased, but this is largely due to the disappearance of a number of low-paying jobs, many of which were filled by young Canadians.

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