Over the past year we have examined the pandemic’s impact on local youth employment. Much of this information has been shared through a blog post series highlighting:
Here, we focus on a retrospective examination of youth employment impacts, while also outlining some potential paths forward. These recommendations come from our own youth consultations in addition to a summary of insights gleaned by Civiconnect, Canadian Heritage, and the YWCA Canada and YMCA Canada.
This first figure outlines annual employment indicators for local youth. These data show that 2020 was a particularly difficult year in terms of employment. In 2021, unemployment decreased from its 2020 highs for both men and women. In addition, the employment and participation rates increased though they still lag behind pre-pandemic rates.
Throughout the first year of the pandemic, we saw that employment for youth was considerably lower than in 2019. Looking at the most recent data shows that youth employment is slowly recovering.
Throughout our local consultations with youth cohorts, the following recommendations were noted:
Given that some of these resources are available (i.e., employment services) ensuring that they are promoted to youth would be of value.
In Civiconnect’s Impacts of COVID-19 on Youth in Niagara[1], youth noted that the following supports would be valuable:
Both the YMCA Canada and YWCA Canada report and the Canadian Heritage State of Youth Report provide recommendations for initiatives that address employment and training:
Employment and training barriers
Taking the above recommendations into consideration, it is clear that a variety of supports would be valuable to assist in youth employment and training moving forward.
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Would you like to know more? NWPB is ready for your questions. Please reach out to Vivian Kinnaird (vivian@nwpb.ca) or Thalia Semplonius (thalia@nwpb.ca).
[1] Civiconnect (October 2021). Impacts of COVID-19 on youth in Niagara: A community needs assessment.
[2] Canadian Heritage (2021). Canada’s first state of youth report.
[3] YMCA Canada and YWCA Canada (August 2021). Preventing a lockdown generation: A plan to support Canada’s youth in post-pandemic recovery
We are collecting data to better understand who is looking for work and what kind of opportunities jobseekers are searching for. This data is completely anonymous and non-personally identifiable.
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