When Target replaces Zellers on Sparks Street in March, all staff will be let go.
The kids aren’t all right. Today’s youth – dubbed ‘Generation Flux’ by the Vital Youth report released earlier this month – are overeducated and underemployed, according to the report.
“It’s the engineer working in the burger stop,” said Ian Bird, president and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada, the company behind the report.
One third of 25- to 29-year-olds are working jobs below their skill level, according to the report, and delaying landmarks like leaving home to begin a family and a career.
This new life trajectory is prominent in areas like Centretown, Bird says, where the proximity of two universities means the youth there are generally highly educated.
Yan Cho works part-time at Elegant Style, a Bank Street boutique, while studying business, economics, and finance at the University of Ottawa. She says she hopes the combination of education and experience will help land her a dream job in the future.
But nothing is guaranteed.
“I have a friend who graduated last summer, and she couldn’t find a job,” Cho said, adding that the friend’s refusal to settle something below the government job she trained for has left her unemployed.
It’s not just government jobs that are hard to come by. Big-box chain Target plans to take over Zellers in March, and is firing all Zellers staff. They have the option to re-apply, but one Ottawa employee has other plans after hearing about his friends’ fruitless job hunts.
“I plan on moving out west before the takeover,” he said. “I’ve heard there’s lots of work opportunity there.”
He spoke on the condition of anonymity, as Zellers employees are forbidden to speak to the media.
The 2009 recession is part of what makes finding work so difficult. Fifty per cent of jobs lost belonged to young workers, says Bird. Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 still face a 15 per cent unemployment rates. This rate has remained steady, and the youth demographic is now the only one that hasn’t recovered from the recession.
Older workers putting off retirement after the recession only adds to the difficulty of finding a good job. Young workers are frozen in low-level jobs, and miss out on valuable work and career experience.
The situation, he says, has the federal government wondering whether or not Generation Flux will be able to take over when the baby boomers eventually retire.
“The big question the feds are asking,” he says, “is will they be ready?”
But it isn’t all doom, defeat, and despair. The young Aboriginal and newcomer population is one of the fastest-growing demographics, says Bird. If the government can help get them into the workforce through both new and old policies, and more job-specific training, unemployment rates will drop.
Bird warns of severe consequences if the rates remain stagnant.
“We risk having a generation disengaging from their communities,” Bird says.
When young people aren’t engaged in their communities, they’re less likely to spend their time and money in them, Bird says. They’re less likely to support local businesses or organizations.
Cho, however, remains optimistic. Things look bad now, she says, but the future is unknown.