When Sami Rasheed started his first year at the University of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s Rotman School of Management, he saw a bright future ahead.
Near the top of his class in high school, Rasheed threw himself into his new adventure. He started his own club, achieved good grades, and eventually secured an internship at a large pension firm. As he neared the end of his program, however, Rasheed had some health problems, delaying his studies by a year.
By the time he graduated in spring 2024, Rasheed had already applied to a handful of companies.
More than a year — and hundreds of applications — later, he’s still searching.
“I’ve been unrelentingly looking for a job since the September before my graduation,†Rasheed said in an interview. “Since I started tracking, I’ve sent out about 1,100 applications.
“This job market has completely broken me.â€
While frustrating, Rasheed’s story is common among Canadian youth right now. According to , people age 15 to 24 are currently facing the highest unemployment rate outside of the pandemic since the mid-1990s.
The trend is reflected in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. While the city’s population and economy have grown in recent years, youth unemployment continues to trend upward. Between January and July of last year, data from shows the percentage of young people without jobs went from 13.2 per cent to 19.8 per cent.
There’s no one factor pushing the rates of unemployment, says Sharif Mahdy, CEO of the Students Commission of Canada. Instead, a “perfect storm†of conditions — lingering consequences of the pandemic, ongoing economic uncertainty, and the introduction of automation in the workforce — have all made securing a job more challenging for younger generations.
“I think there’s a misconception that the individual youth are lazy or just don’t have drive, but the reality is that they’re having to work through a lot more complex issues than previous generations,†Mahdy said in an interview.
“They’re just not growing up in the same world.â€
Sharif Mahdy, the CEO of the Students Commission of Canada, says a “perfect storm” of conditions have made landing a job difficult for younger generations.
Nick Lachance/ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ StarIn April, opened applications for “The Art of Work,” a program that matches young people with job placements across the country. Made possible through a recent round of just over $1 million in renewed funding, the program was only intended to fill 150 work placements. Within weeks, however, the program had received over 200 applications.
It was, Mahdy said, “a surge in demand that we haven’t experienced in decades — even in the pandemic.†The students commission is hoping that the number of applications received will result in an additional round of funding, which would in turn allow it to offer more placements, he said.
It’s the kind of program that 15-year-old Om Patel could have used during his job hunt this summer.
At the end of the most recent school year, Patel, 15, decided he needed to start gaining work experience in advance of his university applications. Since May, he said he’s handed out nearly 70 resumés to entry-level jobs with no luck.
“I think we need more support in our schools — like a teacher helping with resumés in class or some kind of after-school workshop,†he told the Star. “We hear about these kinds of programs but never actually see them.â€
With no other prospects, Patel decided to start his own software development company. It’s only been a couple of months but already he’s had more success.
“I’ve already built products for a few clients,†he said. “But so many of my peers are still looking for jobs.
“Something’s got to change.â€
Racialized youth face higher barriers: Expert
For racialized youth in the GTA, the barriers to getting a job can be even higher, says Ahmad Ilmi, assistant professor of Global Development at the University of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½.
According to the most recent from Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate among Black youth in Canada was just over 18 per cent in January 2025. In comparison, the unemployment rate of youth who were not racialized or Indigenous was just under 11 per cent at that time.
In many cases, a fierce job market has seen older generations, many with years more of work experience than their younger counterparts, filling jobs once considered entry-level. A lack of support in the community for young job seekers — like resumé workshops or interview preparation — also makes it difficult.
However, the biggest barrier remains bias and racism, says Ilmi.
“It’s the other thing that no one really speaks about,†Ilmi said. “People are constantly being bombarded with images of racialized youth in relation to crime or being up to no good, where they’re seen as socially or culturally different — often hyper-violent and hyper-masculine.â€
If an employer is inundated with applications, many from candidates with more experience, or who don’t have other obligations like school, it can become easy to overlook young, racialized applicants.
“It becomes pure economics,†he said.
‘An inability to move forward’
Youth employment isn’t just about a paycheque, say Mahdy and Ilmi. A job offers stability, structure and a sense of community at a critical juncture in young people’s lives.
“It’s the reward of being able to contribute to their own well-being — to have some income, to be able to build a future based on that starting point,†Ilmi said.
“If you can’t get a job, it doesn’t allow you to have the same start in life as your peers,†Mahdy added. “There’s likely going to be an inability to kind of move forward in life, some may accumulate a higher debt load or see a decline in mental health.â€
That’s certainly the case for Rasheed. While the U of T graduate has obtained part-time work at an accounting firm, he hasn’t been able to find a full-time position in the field he studied for. Over the last year, he’s grown increasingly worried for his future.
“Like, even if I find a job, what if I lose it? What if I’m laid off, like so many of my peers have been? Will this happen to me again? And beyond that, it’s like, can I ever really buy a home or sign a 25-year mortgage not knowing what’s going to happen in my future?
“Overall, it’s a very heavy feeling,†he continued. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it’s a bit traumatizing.”
He said he might have to change his strategy.
“I have a few warm leads but if they don’t pan out, I’m just going to sit at my parents’ house and wait till the next military recruiting cycle.â€
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