This generation is the most educated in Canada’s history. With 250,000 graduates entering the workforce in 2013, Generation Y should be the most competent, work-ready group we’ve ever seen.
Sadly, this isn’t the case.
According to recent statistics, there is a direct correlation between the amount of post-secondary students and grads to unemployment of people under 30. In 2011, for example, there were approximately 450,000 students enrolled in both college and university this year. College grads aged 25–29 have a seven per cent unemployment rate, the second-highest recorded amount; university grads of the same age are above 7.5 per cent—the most unemployed university grads in this country, ever.
There are dozens of cited reasons for this phenomenon: an oversaturated market of too many post-secondary grads; students enrolling in non-skilled degrees, ignoring trades and needed careers; the boom generation working past retirement, limiting the amount of available jobs, combined with less jobs post-recession; and many others.
Young people are struggling to find work and their parents’ generation isn’t helping. The growing sentiment is that this generation is being coddled, not doing anything for themselves. The need to live at home and receive support for longer confuses the baby boomers, a generation that readily flew the coop in their teens; (Gen Y is staying well into their twenties).
Without an education, young people are far more limited in terms of career selection, with the majority of careers in Canada as non-starters for individuals with just a high school diploma. Many of the careers that our parents jumped into straight out of high school don’t exist anymore, meaning post-secondary is essentially mandatory, with grad degrees becoming more and more essential. This, along with boomers taking jobs from their younger counterparts, is creating a problematic generational rift, only fuelling the fire of this career crisis.
Therefore, what’s the answer? If education is creating the problem, churning out too many grads with not enough jobs, yet education is necessary to land a job in the first place, how will the Gen Ys get over this hurdle? In ten years, the boomers will be old enough that they have to move on, leaving open their positions. However, with changing times and altering positions, there may not be jobs to fill. Even more troubling: Gen Z will be graduating university in eight to ten years, meaning there will be two generations vying for one generation’s positions.
One positive change students can take to ensure they find a job is choose a career path that is in demand. For example, coders are needed all over the world to complete the millions of web projects needed to keep businesses up-to-date. Code.org recently published that “one million of the best jobs in America may go unfulfilled because only one in ten schools teach students to code,” (and that’s only in America). Arts and social science degrees are being given out like candy (and do have an inherent value, which is an entirely separate discussion) but aren’t goal-driven like education in a trade. Therefore, although education is a necessity, it’s important that students find use in that education in order to find a career.
It will be a combined effort of businesses, governments, schools, and students to sturdy the job landscape over the next ten years (and beyond) but it is doable, with a little thought, sacrifice, and perspective.