Unemployment up by almost one-third among Canadian youth

Roast’ n Brew coffee shop on the corner of Bank Street and Fifth Avenue is not a quiet place: the bubbling of the milk steamer, growling of the espresso machine, beeping of the microwave and the din of conversation with occasional bursts of laughter merge into one bizarre sound.  Sean O’Gorman, a 23-year old Carleton student behind the counter, is scooping out froth from a crock of steamed milk and carefully putting it into a plastic cup with brownish espresso in it. In one move, he hands the drink to a customer and wipes coffee grounds off the counter. O’Gorman  says he has worked at the coffee shop for almost two years. He says he considers himself lucky to have the job. The coffee shop is getting dozens of job applications daily.

Unemployment is up by almost one-third among Canadian youth compared with the last year, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

From September 2008 to September 2009,  98.5 thousand fewer people aged 15 to 24 had a job,  said a Statistics Canada report.  It is a 30-per cent decrease.

The situation is especially challenging for students. Last month’s Labour Force Survey suggested that the student unemployment rate in August  was the highest since 1977. The average number of hours worked during the summer by students was the lowest in more than 30 years, at 23.4 hours per week.

In August, employment was down by 9.5 per cent among students aged 15 to 24 compared with August 2008. It was “the fastest year-over-year rate of decline for a month of August since 1983,” informed last month’s Labour Force Survey release.

O’Gorman works about 20 hours a week. He said it is difficult to balance school and work at times of midterms and finals, but he cannot afford losing his job at this time. He said around September, every day there were several people coming to the coffee shop asking for a job. O’Gorman said the problem with student employment is that students mostly have the same hours of availability.“They all come looking for evening shifts, and we already have trained staff to work at night,” he said.

Eight people work at the Roast’n Brew coffee shop now. Sandra Fresci, the owner, said her staff were mostly students from colleges and even high schools.

“I’ve got a lot of students coming in looking for work. I’m telling people that they can bring an application, but there’s no way I’ll be hiring more people at this time,” added Fresci, pointing at a thick pile of submitted job applications on the counter.

Danielle Zietsma, a Statistics Canada senior economist, said at a news conference on Friday that more people aged 15-24 worked full time in September compared to August. The statistics agency does not have information about student part-time workers in that category.

However, the overall jobless rate in Canada went down for the first time in the last year. It fell by 0.3 percentage points, going down for the first time since the fall of 2008.

The Labour Force survey also showed that women aged 25 and over added 41,000 jobs, while men of that age group added 17,000 fewer jobs. Overall, the Canadian economy added 31,000 thousand jobs in September.

Statistics Canada is an agency that conducts the Labour Force Survey. The survey is released monthly to show trends in employment and unemployment in the country.