Stamp prices rise for the third time in five years amid financial woes for Canada Post
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
New data from Statistics Canada shows that while youth unemployment has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding full-time work has been increasingly precarious since the late 1980s.
The federal agency reported on Monday both male and female workers between 15 and 30 were less likely to have a full-time job in 2019 compared with 1989, a period marked by a rise in part-time employment for the age group.
And some 40 years later, the pandemic has caused further upheaval as the percentage of young people not employed or in school rose almost four percentage points from 2019 to 2020.
The overall unemployment rates for youth rose about six percentage points between 2019 and 2020, the agency noted, which is just about double the rate found with other age groups.
Young people who would've entered the job market in 2020 are now doing it this year and could see lower earnings, StatCan projects.
The effect of the pandemic has been particularly notable on young workers, said Arif Jetha, a scientist at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, since young people tend to be the first to feel the shocks of economic upheaval.
"Their tenure is shorter, they're newer to organizations, they're also more likely to work precariously and in jobs that might be more affected by fluctuations in our economic landscape," said Jetha in an interview.
Aside from jobs, internships and work placements were cancelled in the early stages of the pandemic, he added, tools young people often use as the starting blocks for their career.
Those not enrolled in full-time study saw their employment rates drop around eight percentage points, while rates for other age groupsdropped only about four percentage points in the same time.
StatCan says pay rates rose for younger employees, but that phenomenon was driven in large part by a reduction in low-paying jobs that were previously held by younger employees.
And young people entering the workforce as the pandemic continues may also prove to be difficult, Jetha added, calling the current job environment an "unpredictable" one for youth.
Jehta also spoke of a "misperception" there tended to be around millennial and Gen Z workers about a desire to have more flexible jobs before the onset of the pandemic. He disagrees, however.
"I think many people desired stability. I think what a lot of young people were increasingly seeing was that these types of jobs, high-quality jobs ... are becoming less and less available," he said, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
"Before the pandemic, there seemed to be this diminishing quality of work that we were already seeing."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2021.
-- -- --
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
Defence lawyers for Jeremy Skibicki have told the court the accused unlawfully caused the death of four women, but argue he is not criminally responsible due to mental disorder.
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Italy's mafia rarely dirties its hands with blood these days. Extortion rackets have gone out of fashion and murders are largely frowned upon by the godfathers.
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial fined him US$1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Russia plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, days after the Kremlin reacted angrily to comments by senior Western officials about the war in Ukraine and Moscow warned that tensions with the West are deepening.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.