Group items tagged

the obstacles youth must overcome to finding gainful employment — be it temporary summer work or a permanent position — has never been more daunting.

the youth are always the hardest hit and they take the longest time to get out from under the recession impact on employment.

There's just not enough (jobs) to go around. So if students aren't out there early and aggressively they won't get one

f you've graduated (from college or university) and you want to start paying off your (student loan) debt and get on with your life, it's very difficult to do that on a part-time job."

"There's a lot of part-time activity happening but i

Parents would've expected their 20-something children to be independent but they're just not able to do that

"Hopefully, both parents are working and they're able to stay at home but for a lot of young people that's just not possible."

in big cities like Toronto, there are more youth seeking out homeless shelters

Job experience tends to be the biggest hurdle for the 15- to 24-year-old age group when it comes to impressing an employer.

"There are a lot of youth that are still demanding that they get paid for entry-level work assignments. I think that that is a bad choice for youth.

The first couple of jobs they do by way of an unpaid intern gives them a leg up," Parker says.

Many of those unpaid intern programs end up as full-time, paying careers for them and every major employer across the country has dedicated unpaid intern programs.

Work experience is absolutely critical. No matter what you graduated with, if you don't have real work experience you're going to have a challenge."

Meanwhile, there's little help coming from provincial and the federal government these days it seems. Austerity budgets at the both government levels are seeing civil servants laid off.

there's no encouragement at this point by the federal government for the private sector to do job creation (for youth).

What you study can be the difference

If young people choose to go the route of college, they can get excellent job skills and they have a higher placement rate directly from college into work.

current and future post-secondary students need to take a hard look at what their course of study is and whether or not it'll lead to employment upon graduation.

"When I talk to high school teachers and guidance councillors about the kind of programs being offered to youth talk about 'what's your dream job?' versus educating kids on what jobs will be available to them," she says.

Know how to sell yourself

the secret to landing a job is in knowing how to sell oneself.

"You have to be as competitive as someone who's been in the job market for 10 years," she says. "You've got to know how to do a job search, how to write a résumé, and you need to convince the employer that even though you haven't done a job before that you're a quick-learner and you're creative."

*Target respected employers that best matches your skill set

*Offer to do free summer work for the sake of gaining experience and don't be picky about what's offered *When applying to post-secondary institutions, choose schools that provide intern programs *Be knowledgeable about where employment demand will be in the future and ensure your skills are also in demand

The need to research the causes of underemployment. The need to develop more higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs

Greater use of school-employer partnerships to better match employers’ needs and workers’ skills.

fail to report what portion of their graduates find work that requires a university education.

large numbers of unfilled jobs co-existing with high levels of youth unemployment.

what if Canadian universities were the root cause of the skills gap, rather than the solution?

progressively widening inequality gap between members of your own generation.

40 per cent of Canadian university graduates aged 25 to 29 were employed in “low-skill” jobs,

Canadian graduates turning to jobs-focused colleges for further training.

reduces Canadian productivity and prosperity

they just keep spending public money to produce graduates with few job prospects,

And the class of 2013 may come to realize that the most damaging inequality is not that of financial disparity, but rather the inequality of hope.