Youth unemployment rises as Canada sheds 18k jobs

Canada’s unemployment rate rose 0.2 per cent in April as the country lost around 18,000 jobs and more people looked for work.

Younger Canadians, though, saw unemployment rise by a larger margin than the overall rate, Statistics Canada shows as the rate for Canadians aged 15 to 24, rose by half a percentage point to 14.3 per cent.

While youth unemployment rose 1.3 percentage points in February, to 13.8 per cent, it was unchanged in March. In April, the figure was at 14.3 per cent and hovered close to the recent high of 14.6 per cent recorded in September 2025.

For core-aged men, aged 25 to 54, unemployment rose 0.3 per cent to 6.1 per cent while for women in the same age group, it was unchanged at 5.9 per cent.

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Among people aged 55 years and older, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9 per cent in April.

The percentage of people who had been searching for work for a period of 27 weeks or more rose to 22.5 per cent in April, still significantly higher than the pre-COVID-19 pandemic average of 17.1 per cent from 2017 to 2019.

Full time employment fell 0.3 per cent in April and part-time employment rose 0.8 per cent, Statistics Canada said.