Thank you, Chair. I'll share the time with our chief economist.
Good morning. My name is Vass Bednar. I am the managing director of The Canadian Shield Institute for public policy. We're a new think tank focused on securing economic sovereignty for Canada. I'm also the former chair of the expert panel on youth employment, which was back in 2016-17. I am joined by our chief economist at Shield, Kaylie Tiessen, who is able to be in the room with you. We've both been following this file for many years.
You may be wondering how economic sovereignty connects to youth employment. We, like you, want to ensure that young people can fully participate in, shape and benefit from our domestic economy. We're worried about what current trends mean for the sense of belonging that young people feel and their ability to build the lives they'd like. If the substitution of AI tools and technologies for new hires is effectively erasing a rung on the career ladder, a place where Canadians can learn and fail and grow, we do risk alienating a generation. Employers have changed too. They spend less on training and don't really offer jobs that require no experience. This leads us to that classic question of how young people gain experience in the first place.
Ironically, generation Z is ready for the AI economy. They are adaptive. They are digitally fluent. They are willing to learn. However, we are starting to see evidence that we're automating away many of the opportunities that can let them prove that. As you know, the youth unemployment rate has risen sharply, even without an official recession. That is unusual. It is a strong signal that something structural is breaking down in how young people enter the workforce. New data from Desjardins, Statistics Canada, the private sector and, yes, The Canadian Shield Institute all point to a disturbing trend: For the first time since the 1990s, young Canadians are both working less and earning less when they are working.
We see three forces at play. First, that entry-level ladder is missing rungs. Global job postings for roles that require zero to two years of experience are down nearly 30% since last year, 2024. Employers are automating junior tasks, cutting public sector internship budgets and inflating credential requirements so that young workers just don't qualify. They are also reducing apprenticeship opportunities in skilled trades even as the labour shortage becomes more acute.
Second, AI and automation are changing who gets a first chance. Early-career workers in AI-exposed fields like software, marketing and customer services are already seeing job loss. Meanwhile, those in the trade or care sectors, where AI complements rather than displaces human skills, are doing a little bit better.
Third, 40% of Canadian workers, including young and recent graduates, are overqualified for the job they have. This is a statistic that shows Canada's workers are underemployed, not underskilled. If we keep defining this kind of situation for young people as being a skills problem, we will continue to be focused on the wrong solutions.
I'll turn it over to Kaylie for three directions on policy.