Canada lost 17,000 jobs in May — mostly among young people

Canada lost 17,000 jobs in May, pushing the unemployment rate up to 5.2 per cent, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.

The decline is primarily driven by a 77,000 loss in jobs among youth aged 15 to 24. Meanwhile, employment increased by 63,000 among people aged 25 to 54. Men in this age range represented two-thirds of this growth, gaining 43,000 jobs.

Statistics Canada says the overall unemployment rate was “virtually unchanged,” with only a 0.1 per cent decrease in May. This is the first time since August 2022 that Canadians have lost jobs; 326,000 jobs were gained between September 2022 to January 2023.

Average wages rose to $33.25 — a 5.1 per cent year-over-year increase. This marks the fourth month in a row when the year-over-year wage increases outpaced inflation.

Statistics Canada reports that the industries that lost the most jobs in May were business, building and other support services, which lost 31,000 jobs, equivalent to a 4.4 per cent decline overall.

There were also 40,000 fewer self-employed workers, according to the report.

Youth can’t find work

Shaziah Jinnah Morsette, president of the University of Calgary Students’ Union, has been seeing students at her university struggle to find employment first hand. She says one in five students recently surveyed have been able to find a full-time job this summer.

“Often, this isn’t just summer full-time work that they want; it’s summer full-time work that they need,” said Jinnah Morsette. “That cost-of-living crunch, that affordability crunch is being really felt by post-secondary students, and has been for years.”

In Alberta, the youth unemployment rate was 11.3 per cent this May — double the overall provincial unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent, according to Statistics Canada.

Statistics Canada reports a particularly acute change in youth employment for returning students, especially young women between the ages of 20 and 24. In this group, although 69.5 per cent were employed in May 2022, only 63.8 per cent were employed as of this May. That is four per cent lower than the pre-pandemic rate recorded in May 2019.

“The landscape has changed,” Jinnah Morsette said. “This isn’t anything like 25 years ago where you could easily find a job over the summer [and] work to pay your year of tuition ahead.”

She said that the need to work increased hours takes students’ time away from extracurriculars, volunteering and their studies — all the experiences that assist students when looking for jobs after graduation.

“Students aren’t able to access those things because they’re having to choose to take on those extra hours to continue to cover their bills,” said Jinnah Morsette. “That does take a toll — not only on their grades, but also on their mental health and their well-being.

“That leaves the Alberta economy behind — it leaves our Canadian economy behind.”

Interest hikes could slow

Economists say that this rise in overall unemployment casts doubt on future interest rate hikes from the Bank of Canada.

“While one weak labor market report doesn’t make a trend, the [Bank of Canada] will be closely watching to see if other cracks start to form,” James Orlando, senior economist for TD Bank, wrote in an email.

Jay Zhao-Murray, an analyst for Monex Canada, said in a note because of the “details and composition of employment changes, we do not think it would materially change the Bank’s latest view on the economy.”

But one month of weakening the job market may not be enough.

“The Labor Force Survey is notoriously volatile,” Royce Mendes, managing director and head of macro strategy at Desjardins, wrote in an email. “It would need to be corroborated with a host of additional information to change our view that the Bank of Canada will hike again in July.”

“When things will kind of slow down a bit, we’ll be judging through a whole set of measures, trying to figure out whether things happen,” said Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry in a speech to the Victoria Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. “But we won’t only look at one measure.”