Human Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2025

[The Chair (Robert Morrissey (Egmont, Lib.)), Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Good afternoon.

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on September 18, the committee is meeting with respect to youth employment in Canada. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders, meaning that members and witnesses are in person in the room or appearing virtually. The clerk has advised me that those participating electronically have passed the sound quality test, so we're ready to go.

Before we begin, I would again remind members to please silence their devices and refrain from tapping the boom on the mic, because it can cause popping, which is harmful to our translators. As well, I remind all participating to address all questions through me, the chair. Please wait until I address you by name before speaking.

You have the option of choosing to participate in today's meeting in the official language of your choice. In the room, we have interpretation services. To avoid any disruption, please familiarize yourself with the channel of the language you'll be participating in. If you are attending virtually, you can click on the globe icon at the bottom of your Surface and choose the official language of your choice. If there is a disruption in the interpretation, please get my attention by raising your hand, and we will suspend while it's being corrected.

Before I introduce today's witnesses—we have only two—I want to get approval on two minor housekeeping items.

Would the committee approve that the analysts prepare a press release soliciting briefs on our study of the Canada Labour Code, which is next up, and a second press release for the TFW program study? We would ask for briefs, we're recommending, by January 30 for the Canada Labour Code study and by February 13 for the temporary foreign worker program study. Do we have agreement from the committee to draft those releases?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Okay, and with those timelines.

Analysts and Clerk, we have the approval as presented.

Thank you, committee members.

Today in the room we have Mr. Andrew Tarr, business manager and financial secretary, United Association Local 787, HVAC&R Workers of Ontario; and we have Mircea Vultur appearing online as an individual. He is a professor.

We'll begin with Mr. Vultur for five minutes, please.

[Mircea Vultur, Full professor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of Parliament, it's an honour to appear before the committee as part of this study on youth employment and unemployment. I will structure my presentation in three parts. First, I will provide a numerical overview of youth unemployment in Canada. Second, I will address the causes and consequences of the phenomenon. Third, I will make a few recommendations to the government.

Right now in Canada, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 is about 14%, and in some groups it is over 17% or even 20%. This is the highest unemployment rate since 2010, excluding the early years of the COVID‑19 pandemic. The overall unemployment rate for the entire labour force is around 6% or 7%, which means that, for young people, it is nearly twice as high as the national average.

In June 2025, for example, for those returning to school, the unemployment rate was 17.4%, up from 2024. This level of youth unemployment is typically seen only during recessionary periods, and it contrasts with the resilience of the labour market seen in other age groups.

Several factors contribute to this phenomenon.

The first is economic uncertainty and the slowdown in job creation in some sectors of the economy. While the overall unemployment rate remains moderate, growth has weakened. Businesses are more cautious, and youth-friendly sectors such as retail, accommodation and food services, which typically employ a lot of young people, show lower activity and, as a result, a reduction in hiring.

The second factor is lack of experience and the mismatch between employment and training. Many young people do not yet have the required experience, and their skills are poorly aligned with available positions. One indicator of this is the high proportion of overqualified young Canadian graduates, which is over 33%.

The third factor is the effects of artificial intelligence. Some companies and organizations have adopted AI tools to automate some tasks, which has reduced hiring for entry-level positions. In fact, there has been a decrease in the number of summer internships offered to young people. In addition, automated résumé sorting lowers the chance of young people with no experience being recruited.

The fourth factor is strong competition among young people. There are fewer available positions, but more applicants. Competition has been heightened by the significant increase in the number of international students and temporary permit holders in the Canadian market. This has widened the supply of labour and potentially increased competition for entry-level positions. This does not mean that they are the main cause of high youth unemployment, but their presence is a contributing factor in an already strained environment.

Youth unemployment is generally short-lived. It doesn't have a negative impact on their career in later years, but the delay in acquiring skills and experience following a prolonged period of unemployment has negative consequences for young people and for society as a whole.

I think about the individual consequences first. Prolonged unemployment at the beginning of a young person's career can have lasting effects on their salary, employability and career progression. We see a “scarring effect” among young people starting their careers during a recession. Their career prospects are limited, which can accentuate intergenerational inequalities, especially since young people today are more in debt than previous generations and have more trouble repaying their debts.

Then there are mental health impacts: The feeling of not being able to enter the workforce is stressful for young people. It affects motivation and leads to a loss of self-confidence.

Finally, youth unemployment is a waste of human resources and has economic costs for Canada. Indeed, young people represent a talent pool full of innovators and potential workers in all areas of the economy. Their unemployment reduces overall productivity and increases the required social benefits and government supports.

In closing, I have a few recommendations, of course, that I invite the committee to consider.

First, we need to strengthen and target education-to-employment bridging programs, create and expand programs that guarantee paid internships or quality summer jobs for young people, and promote greater accessibility for young people to the employment insurance program.

Second, we need to better align training and skills with market needs and revise training programs to better integrate digital and cross-sectional skills as well as real-world business experience. Partnerships between schools and businesses should also be encouraged to ensure that young people gain relevant experience before entering the labour market. In that sense, I also recommend funding research programs on the impact of artificial intelligence on youth employment, because there is a serious shortage of them.

Third, companies should be given incentives to hire young people. Targeted grants or tax credits should be offered to small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, for hiring young people through potentially renewable term contracts. We also need to encourage the hiring of young people in growth sectors, such as technology, services, the green transition and digital infrastructure.

Fourth, we need to stimulate the creation of quality jobs and sustainable jobs in the economy—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Vultur. Your time is up.

Mr. Tarr, go ahead for five minutes or less, please.

[Andrew Tarr, Business Manager and Financial Secretary, HVAC&R Workers of Ontario Local 787 (United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices)]

Hello. I'm the business manager of HVAC&R Workers of Ontario U.A. Local 787, and also the joint training and apprenticeship committee trustee.

The HVAC&R Workers of Ontario represents 5,300 heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration mechanics and building maintenance professionals. Our geographical jurisdiction is the province of Ontario, covering all HVACR sectors: manufacturing, residential, commercial, industrial and institutional. Most of our membership hold Cs of Q in 313A, refrigeration and air conditioning systems mechanics, and 313D, residential systems mechanics, along with gas licences. We currently have 340 signatory contractors with U.A. Local 787, and they're represented by the Ontario Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association, or ORAC. Through a joint effort, the union and contractor association operate a training facility that is dedicated to preparing, training and upgrading our membership. Currently, we sign up between 300 to 350 new apprentices yearly.

I'm honoured to be here today to talk about youth unemployment. My experience with youth unemployment is normally with those who are seeking to start a career in the HVACR industry and may have taken a form of post-secondary education or had exposure to the trade through an Ontario youth apprenticeship program. Weekly, on average, the union will receive 80 requests to join, and approximately 50% of those people trying to join the union are new entries to the workforce. We do not track the age of the applicants but, judging from the lack of experience, they are 25 years or younger. There are more applications received to join the union than the union and employers can offer apprenticeships or jobs to.

This has changed over the years, as various governments have spent a lot of time and money on opening people's eyes to the value of the trades. In the past, trades were a second-choice career; today, the trades are becoming a first-choice career. We should be proud that we are changing how the trades are viewed, but there is also a sign of trouble. As we turn people away because we don't have the jobs, they are getting increasingly frustrated and giving up.

The question around why our youth are experiencing a high unemployment rate is not an easy question, and I can't cover it in five minutes, but as you dig, you will find that there are multiple factors that are contributing to higher youth unemployment.

One reason, which has been around forever, is that employers prefer to hire people with experience. This saves money on training, and, in most cases, a new employee with experience generates revenue right away. This is creating a unique situation in the HVAC industry: People with experience are making lots of money, and it's getting hard for people to enter the industry.

Another reason is that, for the last number of years, we have heard all the calls for more workers within the skilled trades, for fear of not having enough people to meet the future. As I stated earlier, increased interest in the skilled trades is due to the recent push, from various governments, that encouraged people to consider the trades instead of colleges or universities. Along with this increase, we are also seeing series 900 SINs—or, in other words, temporary residents. This is something that I had never experienced until about five years ago. This creates further competition for very limited jobs. Beyond competition for jobs, the temporary residents are very motivated, as the life that they are offered in Canada, in most cases, is better than what they had in their homeland. They will do anything, and, in many cases, they prefer to work for cash.

To understand how this affects the industry, we need to understand what the industry is. The industry is broken down into industrial, institutional, commercial and residential. Industrial, institutional and larger commercial, due to liabilities, tend to have licensed, insured contractors with certified workers. Residential, on the other hand, tend to chase the lower-cost and, in many cases, will use what is known as “the underground economy”. The residential HVAC industry, when it comes to people it employs or could employ legally, is five times larger than the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors combined, and in many cases is the entry experience for those in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors. When people are turned away, whether they apply to the union or to a non-union contractor, they will do what they know best, which is to go into business themselves, and the first step is the underground economy, taking away entry-level jobs. This becomes a vicious circle.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Tarr.

We'll begin the six-minute round with Mr. Genuis for six minutes, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you both for your testimony.

Mr. Tarr, our Conservative youth unemployment plan has four pillars: unleash the economy, fix immigration, fix training and build homes where the jobs are. We've been calling on the government to implement that plan as part of their upcoming budget.

I want to drill down on the second pillar of that, the immigration piece, and the fixes that are needed to immigration.

You alluded to that in your testimony, but I wonder if you would be interested in saying a bit more about where you think the immigration failures have been and what you think we could recommend that the government do differently in light of the dynamic you're describing, which is that there is intensifying competition from temporary residents that is crowding out opportunities for young people.

[Andrew Tarr]

I think it has to be monitored better. I think people abuse the temporary foreign worker program. They put job searches out. I have found that, for a lot of the job searches, the wages are posted lower than what a person could live on in Ontario, so they should have to use the prevailing wages within the area where they're looking for workers.

There has been a lot of funding to bring international people to Canada. My office is in Brampton. If you drive around Brampton, on almost every corner there is a recruitment agency. I get calls all the time that they want me to sponsor people to come into the country. When a lot of these people send me emails, they have funding from the government.

If we spent the money to train our people and offered more training, we wouldn't need as many international people.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

In the past, there has been discussion about our having a skill gap and having to bring people from outside, but, if we have unemployed people here, what you're saying is that we could put resources into training people who are here to be able to take those positions.

You talked about training in terms of the gaps in training, saying that there are fewer positions available to be trained in than there are people who are looking at going into these positions. Does that suggest that we need to expand investment in training, or is that just a reality of the fact that there is not as much market demand for that work as people might think?

[Andrew Tarr]

I think there are two different things.

I referred to not having enough jobs. The reality is that there are piles of colleges—and I'll use that term lightly—training people and giving them basic entry-level qualifications. They then go out looking for a job. There are not enough jobs. That's the reality. You can train as many people as you want, but if there are no jobs, there are no jobs.

We have to be concerned, because workers are retiring, but I think we need to better evaluate the situation. When people say that they can't get employees, is it because they aren't paying enough, or is it because there are not enough people?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes, thank you.

There are challenges in immigration and some mismatches in training, but you're highlighting what's effectively the first pillar of our plan, our proposal to unleash the economy based on the fact that there aren't enough jobs. I think there are things we need to do on the training front, but, fundamentally, if we have a situation in which various taxation and regulatory barriers are making it harder for businesses to start, invest and grow, then there are fewer jobs and fewer jobs available for young people.

I wonder if you can speak a bit to that point. What do you think is required in the space of government policy that would unleash economic growth and create more job opportunities for your members, your prospective members and other Canadians?

[Andrew Tarr]

I think there are red tape regulations that are slowing things down—permits and stuff like that, for sure. I am going through that right now with the training centre in Mississauga. We have lots of challenges.

I think we could find ways to speed things up. Things are challenging right now. In the last week or so, a lot has changed, but I think the government needs to work to free up some resources to help get things going.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

Removing red tape, unleashing the economy, freeing up resources, fixing immigration, fixing training....

In the time you have left—40 seconds—can you tell us a bit about that training centre you're working on in Mississauga and some of the challenges but also the opportunity you see with that centre?

[Andrew Tarr]

Currently, we have a 35,000-square-foot training centre. We're upgrading it to a 70,000-square-foot training centre so that, hopefully, we can train all our members and do some pre-apprenticeship training.

The challenge we're running into is just the long time it takes to get permits. We've been working at it now for over a year, and it seems like it just doesn't.... It's like watching paint dry.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes, I think that's a concern we hear a lot.

I think that's my time. You're being very generous today, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis. It's a most interesting topic.

Madam Koutrakis, you have six minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being with us today.

Interestingly enough, yesterday I held a round table discussion with 13 different institutions and colleges under Polytechnics Canada, including some employers.

Before I left that meeting, I asked them one question: If there was one demand, one request that I could bring back to the government and specifically to the ministers involved in this file, what would it be? They said, “Space. We need the resources to open up more spaces for students.”

The reason they said that was that, according to them, half a million students graduate from their programs every year, and they have waiting lists for students who want to join these programs.

I look to each of you. When you're dealing with this issue, is your experience the same?

[Andrew Tarr]

I guess I'll go first.

If you're going to support a college, I think you should look at the types of colleges that are being supported, because there are a lot of colleges. Private career institutes would be a better description, where they're privately owned, run for profit and turn out as many people as they can.

Those 80 people I get applying per week have had some sort of training, and they're looking for a job. I don't think it helps to train people when they aren't going to get a job because there are not enough jobs.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Professor Vultur, would you like to add anything?

[Mircea Vultur]

Can you repeat the question?

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Yesterday, I met with 13 representatives of institutions and colleges, including employers. They told me that, every year, about 500,000 students complete their programs and would like to find a job, but there are no job opportunities. There are students who want to work, but they have trouble finding a job.

Have you heard the same thing?

[Mircea Vultur]

Yes, it's the phenomenon of post-graduation work-entry difficulties. Many young graduates are looking for jobs but cannot find them. There are job postings for positions that require degrees lower than university or college degrees. Most of the available jobs are in the secondary economy. As a result, today, a large number of young people are overqualified for their jobs; 33% of young people have jobs that do not require their level of training.

I think an adjustment needs to be made in that regard. As the other witness said earlier, we need to reassert the value of vocational training. That is where most job offers are, while fewer jobs require college or university degrees. There is an overproduction of graduates whose fields of study do not correspond to the needs of the economy.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

I'm wondering, Mr. Tarr, if you could expand further. You mentioned to free up some resources. What resources, specifically, are you referring to?

[Andrew Tarr]

I mean to get people employed. Right now there is a stall in the market. There could be funding to help get things going, like building houses and stuff like that.