The Minister of Jobs, Patty Hajdu, announced Friday afternoon that the federal government is creating up to 6,000 more places in the Canada Summer Job program for young people, a measure that comes so struggle to find work.
“These are late news, but I think it is very important to be able to help with the type of urgency this summer,” Hajdu said in an interview with CBC’s The house It is broadcast on Saturday morning.
According to a press release, the Federal Government is reassigning $ 25 million of the employment and social development of Canada to create the 6,000 additional jobs. The statement also said that CSJ was “on the way” to create 70,000 jobs for young people this summer.
The unemployment rate for people between 15 and 24 years has constantly marked up, according to Statistics Canada. In January 2023, the unemployed unemployment rate seasonally in this age group was 10 percent. In May 2025, it was 14.2 percent.
Mel Buy, a 19 -year -old girl from Alliston, Ontario, said she has been driving sending her curriculum to temporary agencies “and only expects the best, and I hope they can solve something to help me.”
He bought that his ideal work would be to work in a factory to build towards the career of his dreams in welding, but “each person is looking for work.”
She told him The house She is trying to stay positive, but “it is a bit stressful trying to solve everything and try to plan, especially because of how expensive everything is and, once again, the entire hiring crisis.”
“Apest. Just trying again and again getting a job or simply any type of income is very difficult,” the purchase said.
Hajdu said the government is looking to build projects throughout Canada, which requires more merchants. Because of that, it will be “very investing” on opportunities for young people to improve their skills if they are interested in entering the trades.
Canada Summer Jobs provides salary subsidies to support employers in the creation of summer work experiences for those between the ages of 15 and 30.
Riley Locke, a 25 -year -old graduate at the Metropolitan University of Toronto, said The house He needed to complete a summer internship between the first and second year of his mastery in urban planning, but the experience was “frustrating.”
Locke, who presented hundreds of applications since January, spoke with the presenter Catherine Cullen a week before she finally got a job. In a follow -up interview, he said he is relieved, but “it is difficult not to feel that it is only the fate of the raffle.”
“I had a good amount of really stressful days in which I had received a rejection email,” Locke said.
What is to blame?
Ilona Dougherty, cooker of the Youth and Innovation Project at the University of Waterloo, said that Locke’s purchase and experiences of sending countless curriculums without luck is exactly what he has been listening for for more than a year.
“Unfortunately, young people are the canaries in the coal mine,” Dougherty said.
He added that there is currently an incredibly complex “economic situation” in addition to other challenging factors, such as increasing the use of AI and a large number of temporary foreign workers.
Locke said the job application process can sometimes feel degraded and dehumanizing because some companies use AI to classify applications.
He added that he becomes a “riddle game” to discover “if I need to write for a human or write for a robot.”
Dougherty said Canada needs to “fundamentally rethink how entry level works will be seen for young people” if you want a workforce that is not economically disconnected in five to 10 years.
“The AI is a train that extends along the tracks, but we are certainly not going to stop it. We need to make sure the young people are prepared,” Doughty said. She also referred to a New York Times guest essay Of a LinkedIn executive who wrote that AI is breaking the “lower step of the professional staircase.”
At the end of May, the conservative deputy Jamil Jivani launched a request to end the temporary program of foreign workers and cited youth unemployment as a reason why.
Dougherty said the situation is “much more complex than [Jivani] He presents that it is “, but added that there is evidence that wages are depressed when companies trust temporary foreign workers instead of paying a young Canadian.
“It is not just about stopping the immigration of all kinds and this will magically solve the problem. But we certainly have to ensure that companies are paying the right salaries for those entry level roles. That is absolutely critical,” he said.
“We really have to take this seriously and invest in young people … it depends on adults. This is not the fault of young people, and we need to solve the problem.”
