BURST
The labour market for young workers in B.C. has cratered in the past seven years, a new report from the Business Council of B.C. says.
Since 2019, B.C.’s youth labour market — 15 to 24 year olds — has deteriorated to the point where fewer young people are working, fewer can find work, and a growing number have given up looking.
“This should concern anyone who is young, has children, or employs young people,” said report author Jairo Yunis.
The unemployment rate for young people, now about 14 per cent, is worse than at any time since the 2008 global financial crisis, with the exception of the 2020-21 pandemic years.
B.C.’s population of 15 to 24 year olds grew by about 58,000 between January 2019 and March 2026, mostly driven by growth in temporary residents and international students. But the number of young workers declined and youth employment has now fallen to where it was in mid-2017 — erasing eight years of gains.
Youth unemployment may drop somewhat because of the new federal policy restricting the number of international students and temporary foreign workers.
For example, Tim Hortons announced last week that it is cutting back on foreign staff at its outlets and has vowed to hire 10,000 local employees instead, including at 80 new locations opening this year. It said about 4,000 of its 110,000 workers are part of the temporary foreign worker program.
But the problem won’t be solved by reducing immigration targets alone, because the numbers are dire. There are now 671,000 young people in B.C., close to an all-time high, but only 347,000 were employed as of March 2026.
There are 51,000 fewer young people working in B.C. than in 2019, and the number of unemployed youth has risen by 23,000.
And 85,000 youth aren’t in the workforce at all. Some may be staying in school longer and relying on their parents, “but many are likely young people who have stopped looking for work because they don’t believe a job is available for them” — what economists call a “discouraged worker effect.”
B.C.’s youth participation rate, which measures the share of young people who are either working or looking for work, has dropped to 60 per cent, the lowest since December 2001.
Historically, youth unemployment has been higher than joblessness among older people because younger workers have less experience and are still learning how to find and keep jobs. But the gap between the two is widening, with the difference at around five percentage points in 2019 rising to around nine points in March 2026.
Youth unemployment in 2019 was just under nine per cent and has risen to nearly 14 per cent, while adult unemployment has only risen from four to just over five per cent.
This problem is almost unique to B.C. Since 2019, youth employment has grown in every province except B.C. and, to a much lesser extent, Nova Scotia.
The participation rate in B.C. is also now the lowest in Canada. In 2019, B.C. had the third highest youth labour force participation at 68.7 per cent, behind only Quebec and Manitoba. By March of this year, it had fallen to 58.5 per cent, the lowest of any province.
Job losses for youth in B.C. were concentrated in retail, accommodation and food services, which together accounted for 48 per cent of all youth employment in the province. Accommodation and food services lost 20,600 young workers, a drop of 26 per cent, and retail lost 9,600 (down 10 per cent).
“The combined loss in these two sectors exceeds the total net decline in youth employment, meaning that other sectors, including health care (up 10,000), public administration (up 4,500), and construction (up 2,600), partially offset the losses.”
A big reason is weak private sector hiring. Since January 2019, private sector employment in B.C. has grown by just two per cent, and that is “typically the first place of employment for young workers, accounting for most entry-level positions in retail, food services, construction, and other sectors where youth are concentrated.
“When private sector hiring is this weak for this long, it affects those young workers deciding whether to start looking in the first place.”
The discouragement runs deep, the report said. “Many young British Columbians appear to have concluded that looking is not worth the effort.”
A rapid increase in the supply of entry-level workers, including temporary residents and international students, is also a major factor.
While the numbers of temporary youth residents has fallen from a peak of 675,500 in April 2025 to 663,300 in March, that trend “will not on its own reverse the underlying weakness in demand for entry-level labour in B.C.”
And rising costs for employers are also limiting how much entry-level work they offer.
The B.C. minimum wage just rose to $18.25 an hour, 30 per cent above where it sat in 2019. Add in the employer health tax, WorkSafeBC premiums and other escalating costs for business and the cost to hire a low-experience worker is now more expensive in B.C. than many other provinces, according to the report.
Research from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business rates B.C. as the second-highest for employer payroll tax burden at 11.3 per cent of a $50,000 annual salary, behind only Quebec.
“These three forces interact with each other. Weak private sector hiring reduces the number of available entry-level positions, a surge in non-permanent residents increases competition for those positions, and rising employer costs incentivizes firms to either hire more experienced workers or to hold off on creating new entry-level positions.
“Young workers, with fewer skills, less experience, and higher training costs, are the most vulnerable to this combination of pressures and are effectively squeezed off the lowest rung of the labour market.”
Having fewer young workers on the job creates a cascading problem.
“This matters because young people who enter the workforce build skills, work habits and professional networks that shape their earning potential for decades,” said Yunis.
“Research consistently shows that extended periods outside of the labour force during early working years are associated with lower lifetime earnings, a harder time staying consistently employed later in life, and greater reliance on government income support.”
Policy needs to match the crisis, the report said. “The most effective way to bring discouraged young workers back into the labour market is to give employers a reason to hire them,” said Yunis.