Canada’s youth unemployment rate climbed to 14.6% in July, its highest level since September 2010 when excluding the pandemic years, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey. The agency said youth employment fell by 34,000 in the month and that young workers continued to face difficult job-search conditions compared with other age groups.
Operatively, the July reading means Canadians ages 15 to 24 were unemployed at a rate more than double that of the overall labour force, even as the headline jobless rate held at 6.9%. Statistics Canada noted the youth employment rate fell to 53.6%, the lowest since 1998 outside the pandemic, signaling fewer young people were working relative to their population.
The July report also shows how broad the deterioration has been within youth cohorts. Over the past two years, the youth unemployment rate has risen 4.3 percentage points. Young men saw the largest increase, up 5.7 points to 16.2%, while the rate for young women reached 12.8%. Among returning students, the unemployment rate reached 17.5% in July, the highest for that month since 2009 when excluding 2020. These figures point to a weak summer job market for students and recent graduates.
Sector dynamics added stress. Employment fell in information, culture and recreation by 29,000 jobs and in construction by 22,000, while business, building and other support services lost 19,000. Transportation and warehousing was a notable offset with a gain of 26,000. The agency’s special questions suggest worker confidence is being shaped by layoffs and tariff-related trade uncertainty, which some respondents cited as a reason for lowered prospects.
Regional signals were mixed but did little to ease youth-specific pressure. Alberta’s unemployment rate rose to 7.8% as overall employment fell, and British Columbia also posted a decline in employment with a higher jobless rate. Ontario’s unemployment rate was 7.9%, little changed on the month, while Quebec’s rate fell to 5.5% as fewer people searched for work. These provincial patterns frame a national backdrop where youth bore the brunt of July’s losses.
Methodologically, the July Labour Force Survey captured conditions during the week of July 13 to 19. Statistics Canada’s notes remind users that the youth rates reflect the share of unemployed within the youth labour force and that student categories in summer are reported on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis. Those design features help explain why summer readings can swing sharply when employers pull back on seasonal roles or delay hiring plans.
The timing now turns to whether August data show stabilization. Statistics Canada plans to release the next Labour Force Survey on Friday, September 5, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Analysts will watch for any rebound in student employment as summer ends, the split between part-time and full-time youth jobs, and whether sectoral hiring stabilizes after July’s pullbacks. The outcome will shape expectations for entry-level hiring, wage growth and the durability of household spending heading into fall.
