Guest column: Canada's changing labour market - where have the good jobs gone?

So you’ve just graduated university. You've spent three to four years studying, had more late nights at the library than you care to admit, and are now preparing to enter the labour market. You're ready to put your degree to work, and start achieving success in your career.  

Unfortunately for many new graduates, "success" means a part-time job outside of their field of specialization. A recent report from the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), entitled Underemployment is Canada’s Real Labour Market Challenge, found that part-time jobs grew at twice the rate of full-time jobs and accounted for a staggering 40 percent of the job growth between 2008 and 2013.[1] So the Canadian labour market is becoming saturated with part-time work, while stable, full-time jobs are slowly disappearing.

We also know that it is not uncommon for a recent university grad to remain in their part-time job – often making minimum wage – for several years, instead of launching a career in their chosen field. This phenomenon is known as "underemployment," and according to the CLC, nearly 28 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are either unemployed, working less hours than they desire, or have given up looking for work in their field.[2]

Moreover, Statistics Canada reports that after adjusting for inflation, workers between the ages of 17 and 24 make less today than workers in the same age group did in 1981.[3] This is likely due to Canada's high youth unemployment rate[4] – which currently stands at 13.2 percent for youth between 15 and 24 – as high unemployment can affect earning power by putting downward pressure on wages and quality jobs. As well, the OECD Skills Outlook notes that more than 25 percent of Canadian workers are employed in positions that require skills below their academic qualifications, and this includes recent graduates.[5]

Clearly, then, chronic youth unemployment and underemployment are not imaginary gripes among millennials. Rather, they're the cold, harsh realities facing today's young graduates. While we endeavor to prepare ourselves for the labour market, it appears that the labour market is not prepared for us. And the shift to a service-based economy has created a job market that is saturated with over-qualified and underemployed workers who lack the opportunity to practice the skills and knowledge that they acquired during school.

Of course, a college or university education is not merely a one-way ticket to sleep deprivation, developing a coffee addiction, and having the best St. Patrick’s Day parties of your life. There is still immense value in obtaining your education.

But current labour market trends should worry young Canadians who are entering the workforce. And, at the same time, Canada's economic growth shouldn’t be stunted by a lackluster job market for youth. Most young graduates have the skills that employers need, but many of us don't have the opportunities to use them.

With youth unemployment and underemployment at record levels, we need to demand an economy that works for everyone, and acknowledge the fact that hard-working young graduates deserve to pursue a career that provides us with a decent standard of living. It is time for us to demand change, and making our voices heard in this year's federal election would be a good place to start.

David Ragni is a second-year law student at the University of Windsor and a caseworker at Legal Assistance of Windsor (LAW), a joint collaboration between Legal Aid Ontario and Windsor Law serving low-income citizens in the areas of Employment Insurance, employment standards, landlord and tenant law, immigration law, and social assistance.