Andre Campbell isn’t short on job experience. At age 27, he has poured coffee for Tim Hortons, mowed lawns, sorted recycling and cooked fast food, among numerous other jobs.
"I’ve learned a lot of random, general labour things – anything I could do with my hands," he said.
But even with experience, Campbell is struggling to find work. In seven months of looking, he’s had just two interviews.
For young job seekers, this summer has been a cruel one. For students, it’s been bad enough to break records. The unemployment rate for students rose sharply to 20.9 per cent in July, Statistics Canada said yesterday in its latest report. That’s up from 13.8 per cent from July 2008 – and the highest level since the government started tracking it in 1977.
"The stars were aligned about as badly as they could have been for the summer market this year, whether it was the currency, the weather, or the underlying economy," said Doug Porter, deputy chief economist for BMO Capital Markets. "It’s tough to imagine a worse set of circumstances for student employment."
Overall, the jobless rate held steady at 8.6 per cent for July. That may sound positive, but details in the report are discouraging:
Toronto’s unemployment rate roared into double-digit territory, hitting 10 per cent for the first time since 1994. The GTA now has the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the province – and the country.
The economy lost 44,500 jobs – a lot more than expected. That casts doubt on the Bank of Canada’s hope that economic recovery will take hold in the second half of this year.
Some 54,000 Canadians dropped out of the workforce entirely. They were so discouraged that they just gave up looking for a job.
Speaking to reporters in Regina, where he is attending the Council of the Federation meeting, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Canada’s national unemployment statistics were "a hopeful sign" for Ontario.
Peter Walker, 22, an aerospace engineering student, started the summer hoping for work in his field, but then broadened his search to "anything," he said.
With just a few weeks to go until classes resume, he’s still looking, "but after three months of not finding anything, it’s more of going through the motions. I really don’t believe anything is going to come up."
Nisha Mahadjeri, 17, hasn’t had any luck finding summer work. The high-school student left a job selling shoes three months ago to look for something better. Since then, she’s taken short stints at McDonald’s but hasn’t found what she wants.
Young workers are at a disadvantage compared to their older counterparts, and a recession only makes it worse, as more experienced workers start competing for the same jobs, said John-Frederick Cameron, a vice-president at Youth Employment Services.
"For the same amount of money, employers can get the 35-year-old who’s got the experience, who’s got the degree," Cameron said.
"It’s just a recipe for disaster online payday loans."
He said the agency has seen nearly double the number of youths looking for work in the last year.
StatsCan defines students as those between the ages of 15 and 24 "who attended school full-time in March and who are planning to return to school in the fall."
For other youth in the same age bracket, the jobless rate is much lower, 13.4 per cent, but still much higher than the national average.
This summer, the industries that typically employ students, restaurants, catering, hospitality, tourism and construction, cut back on hiring because of the recession.
In Toronto, the sharp climb in the jobless rate, to 10 per cent in July from 9.6 per cent in June, came as the tourism sector struggles with a strong Canadian dollar and new passport requirements that may be keeping visitors away, as well cool, wet weather that tends puts a damper on summer spending.
"Toronto is important for the tourism sector, and tourism has been hammered by this downturn. We rely on visitors from abroad and the strong currency isn’t helping," economist Porter said.
The weakness in construction also weighed heavily on the city.
Windsor has the highest unemployment in the country, 15.2 per cent, followed by London at 10.9 per cent and 10.5 per cent in St. Catharines-Niagara. These communities that have seen steep job losses as automotive and manufacturing plants cut production and, in some cases, shut their doors.
StatsCan measures unemployment for what it calls the Toronto CMA, or census metropolitan area, which extends from Milton in the west to Ajax on the east side, and north to Georgina.
The StatsCan report found that the private sector shed 74,900 jobs in July, and the public sector lost another 4,400. Those losses were offset as 34,800 people joined the ranks of the self-employed.
That gives a net loss of 44,500 jobs for the month – far more than the 7,400 the economy lost in June.
"The Bank of Canada is talking about the recession ending in the third quarter, but (this) certainly suggests there is still quite a bit of weakness embedded in the economy," said Beata Caranci, director of economic forecasting for TD Economics.
Economists expect unemployment to go up, even as the economy starts to recover, "but the magnitude of the job losses at least should be tapering, and that didn’t happen in this report," she added.
But the overall unemployment rate didn’t budge because of the number of people who dropped out of the workforce. That lead to a decline in what’s known as the participation rate, which was holding at just below 68 per cent. It dropped another 0.3 per cent in July, to 67.2 per cent.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the pace of job losses slowed more than forecast in July and the unemployment rate dropped for the first time since April 2008, the clearest signs yet that the worst recession since the Great Depression is easing.
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