This is part of the Charlatan‘s research blog, which examines new and interesting research conducted at Carleton.
A Carleton masters student authored a report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) on July 31, which says that federal public service cuts have heavily contributed to the decline in student summer employment.
In the report, entitled “Help Not Wanted,” Kayle Hatt said “Canada has a youth unemployment problem.” His report found that summer hiring or students in the federal public service declined by more than a third from the summer of 2009 into the summers of 2013 and 2014.
The report also stated “cuts to the federal public service have significantly reduced the number of students that are hired by the government itself.”
“The unemployment rate only measures the students who are actually looking for jobs,” Hatt said, adding that while fewer students are looking for these jobs, youth unemployment remains high. “Youth employment has gone down substantially, but there’s a lot of young people who wanna find jobs who can’t.”
Hatt also said that while the amount of jobs for young people has gone down, expenses for young people have gone up.
“Tuition has gone up much faster than the rate of inflation,” Hatt said. “Compared to 1975, a young person making minimum wage would have to work two and a half times as long to pay for their tuition as someone in 1975.”
Hatt’s report also notes that youth unemployment has a large economic cost due to the effect of long-term unemployment known as “scarring.” His report cites a recent TD Economics report that says that youth who experience unemployment end up earning less than their peers throughout their careers.
“This problem costs Canada $20 billion. It’s equal to 1.3 per cent of GDP,” Hatt said.
According to Hatt, the federal and provincial governments’ cuts to programs that helped students find jobs in the private and public sectors have contributed to the problem. He noted that the federal government’s Youth Employment Strategy (YES) program has been cut by more than 60 million dollars in the last three years despite youth unemployment still being very high compared to pre-recession levels.
Hatt said students are given the opportunity to be productive and contribute to the economy when governments create incentives for employers to hire them.
He noted that some of the countries with the lowest unemployment rate are Austria and Germany, where the governments partially subsidize the wages of young people for the first few months.
“It shows that if you create an active role for government in creating opportunities, in getting young people in the door, in getting them the skills that employers actually care about, those young people are then attractive to those employers afterwards, regardless of the fact that the subsidies expired.” Hatt said.
Related articles
