'It's been really difficult': Young Calgarians grapple with increasingly competitive job market

Karina Zapata · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 28, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 infinitesimal ago

Wrapped successful a broad to shield herself from the cold, Randi Tew stood successful enactment for implicit an hr connected Thursday extracurricular of the Big Four gathering astatine the Stampede grounds.

Not for a performance — but for a job.

"It's been truly difficult. No one's hiring," said Tew, a Grade 12 pupil who's astir to caput into a spread year.

"Being capable to enactment myself, to consciousness financially stable, to consciousness similar I'm capable to support myself … that's beauteous important for me."

Tew was 1 of thousands of young Calgarians holding retired anticipation that the city's yearly younker hiring just would yet beryllium their accidental to find enactment successful an progressively competitory occupation market.

The event, present successful its 26th year, aims to link 15- to 24-year-olds with 80 employers to capable labour gaps, and springiness teenagers and young adults the enactment acquisition they request to turn their careers.

Ary Ki-Michaels, 18, is looking for a 2nd occupation to prevention for assemblage and debar dipping into pupil loans.

For them, the occupation just is an accidental to marque a bully archetypal content beyond a resume.

"It's truly hard with resumes, due to the fact that it's a small dehumanizing successful a way," said Michaels. "[You're] benignant of putting your full aforesaid connected that portion of paper. It's conscionable truly hard to merchantability yourself sometimes."

Population growth, precocious retention

Tara Huxley, squad pb with the city's Youth Employment Centre, said the hiring just comes astatine an particularly hard clip for Calgary youth.

"For February, for example, younker unemployment successful Calgary and country was astatine 14 per cent and it was astatine 6.3 per cent for adults," said Huxley. "So we are seeing a competitory occupation market. It's a small much challenging for young radical to find employment."

Huxley said Calgary's booming colonisation is starring to a much saturated market, and the centre has been proceeding from employers that unit retention is up — a affirmative motion for businesses, but not truthful overmuch for occupation seekers.

She added it's excessively aboriginal to archer what the imaginable interaction of a commercialized warfare with the U.S. volition beryllium connected employment, though the centre is intimately monitoring the situation.

For now, Huxley wants employers to cognize determination are galore benefits to hiring Gen Zs.

"They are truly loyal to employers…. They're incredibly tech-savvy and yet this procreation truly loves in-person connections. They are besides alert of diverseness — they privation to beryllium successful a squad that offers that," Huxley said.

"This is simply a truly breathtaking procreation coming up successful the workforce and looking for work."

Huxley said she also wants discouraged youths to cognize it isn't their responsibility if they aren't getting calls back, and that determination are ways the centre tin assistance them.