Youth unemployment and the crisis in higher education in Canada. What's happening and what does it mean for families

If we're being direct: the younger generation of Canadians (from teenagers to those in their early twenties) is currently facing the most difficult employment situation the country has seen in the last decade and a half, and the COVID crash is a separate issue. Against this backdrop, the college and university educational network is going through a series of layoffs: thousands of faculty and administrative staff are losing their jobs, and hundreds of academic programs are being shut down. For parents whose children are still studying (from elementary school to graduation), a practical question arises: what kind of preparation should they give their child, if the job market has turned upside down in three years? Let's break it down point by point.

What's happening with young people in the job market

The numbers speak for themselves. In the report Fraser Institute The following trend is shown: unemployment among Canadian citizens aged 15–24 rose from 10 percent in 2022 to 13.8 percent by 2025. When measured over a three-year period, this rate of increase represents an all-time high for a country not in recession. The peak occurred in September 2025, when the rate reached 14.61%, surpassing all figures from the past fifteen years, with the possible exception of the pandemic-stricken year of 2020.

If we translate these percentages into real human lives, it becomes even more eloquent. By 2025, approximately 437,000 Canadians aged 15-24 will be unsuccessfully looking for work. In 2022, there were 290,000 such people.

By contrast, it is worth taking a look at Canada. The U.S. figure for 2025 remained at 10%, meaning that Canada exceeds the U.S. level by 3.8 percentage points. Such a large gap between the two countries was last recorded only in the 1990s and during the pandemic.

The youngest subgroup suffered the most. Unemployment for the 15-19 age group rose to 19.5 percent in 2025: this means that among high school students and teenagers making their first attempts at part-time or entry-level jobs, almost one in five remained unsuccessful.

What is happening with colleges and universities

The Canadian university system, in parallel, is going through one of the most difficult periods in its history. According to Ontario Public Service Employees Union, In Ontario alone, by the summer of 2025, around ten thousand people working in colleges will have either lost their jobs or are awaiting layoffs. The union says that, in terms of scale, this wave of layoffs is among the largest to occur in the province, comparable even to the bankruptcy of Hudson's Bay, which resulted in eight thousand people losing their jobs in a single day.

The picture regarding academic programs is as follows: over six hundred programs have been suspended or completely closed. Out of two dozen Ontario colleges, only one has not been affected by this measure. As for the admission of international students, in the fall of 2024, there were 48 percent fewer students than in the fall semester of 2023. In other words, the flow has shrunk by almost half.

And the picture is similar in other provinces. On the west coast, in British Columbia, the state is cutting funding at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Langara College, and a number of other institutions. In Alberta's universities, the pace of hiring new employees is slowing down, while the cost of tuition for international students is increasing.

Why did this even happen

Sources agree on the main reason: it is the federal restrictions on attracting international students, which came into effect at the beginning of 2024. For decades, Canadian colleges have relied precisely on students from other countries, as their tuition fees far exceeded the amounts paid by Canadian citizens for the same spot. When this source of income was cut off, gaping holes of tens and hundreds of millions of dollars appeared in the budgets of educational institutions.

Economists say that youth unemployment was caused by several processes occurring simultaneously: a surge in immigration (mainly an influx of low-skilled workers), a simultaneous increase in the minimum wage in several provinces, and a slowdown of the entire economy amid trade tariffs from the US side. The combination of these factors has led to a situation where a teenager or someone who has just graduated from college finds their first job to be a real stroke of luck.

What should a parent do with this

An honest answer looks like this: we don't have a recipe for all occasions. But we do have a basic line of conduct that remains effective regardless of what political or economic shocks await Canada in the coming years.

It makes sense to invest in skills that will remain with a child regardless of the labor market conditions. These include an academic foundation, digital literacy, the ability to learn independently, and communication skills. And in this list, proficiency in a second language stands out as a separate item. If an employer has two candidates with similar resumes, fluency in a second language often becomes the deciding factor. This doesn't just apply to Russian; any language the child can communicate in without strain will suffice.

Families who come from Russian-speaking countries have an advantage: the second language is already in use, you just need to keep it from fading. Maintaining the Russian language for a bilingual child gives him one of those highly stable skills that work regardless of market conditions. This doesn't mean that Russian will «save you from unemployment.» It means that, among many investments in a child, investing in their bilingualism is one of the most reliable, because the result lasts a lifetime.

This is what we do at Palme School: we help bilingual children from the US and Canada preserve and develop Russian so that it remains with them as a fully-fledged second language, rather than just fragments of their grandmother's phrases. What else works in the current conditions: early work experience (volunteering, part-time jobs in high school), connections with the Russian-speaking community (sometimes the first job comes through family acquaintances), focus on STEM fields, where demand for specialists remains high. And Child's overall development regardless of external circumstances, because it changes, while skills stay with him for a long time.