BMO Comments on Canada's Youth Unemployment

08:26 AM EDT, 08/19/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Canada's youth unemployment rate rose to 14.6% in July, the highest rate since 2010, aside from the extreme distortion of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Bank of Montreal (BMO).

Before 2020, the highest youth jobless rate was set in 1982 at just above 20%. But that sky-high rate was accompanied by the highest overall jobless rate of the post-war era (13.1%), noted the bank.

One way to drill down to the specific pressure on youth versus the overall population is to look at the ratio of the

youth rate (14.6%) versus the rate for those 25 and over (5.7%), which is now around 2.5:1, stated BMO. That ratio, which the bank has smoothed over a year, tends to ebb and flow in line with the underlying population growth of those aged 15-24.

So, unsurprisingly, when the youth population swells, it tends to drive up the youth jobless rate relative to others.

The past few years have seen extreme growth in the 15-24

category, largely due to the large influx of international

students. In one single 12-month period (to July 2024), the

youth population surged by 7.2% year over year. Is it any wonder the youth jobless rate then spiked, asked BMO.

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