A new report about Toronto’s youth unemployment crisis found young people are not asking for handouts and are seeking fair access to employment.
The Toronto Youth Employment Postcard Report is a “youth-driven policy document” developed by The Neighbourhood Group Community Services along with the Toronto Youth Cabinet and other community groups. It was unveiled at City Hall on Thursday.
“This report reflects over a year of community consultations, frontline insights, and youth-led research, outlining the urgent need to expand meaningful and gainful job opportunities for young people — especially amid a summer where youth unemployment and youth violence continue to rise across our city,” a release states.
Serena Nudel, director of community programs at The Neighbourhood Group Community Services, spoke to Breakfast Television on Thursday ahead of the report’s release, and said a major takeaway from the report is that youth want to work and are ready for it.
“They are looking for opportunities and they’re ready to work and we need to be able to create those opportunities for them so that they’re able to thrive and succeed in the future, so that they are able to have the opportunities that their parents did, that past generations have, so that they’re able to succeed,” Nudel said.
According to the report, youth unemployment has risen to the highest levels seen since 2016, excluding the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Statistics Canada, the national youth unemployment rate held steady at 14.2 per cent in June and “remained significantly above” its pre-pandemic average of 10.8 per cent, recorded from 2017 to 2019. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 in Ontario was 15.8 per cent in June.
“With reductions in youth-specific employment programs at every level of government, young people across the city are facing increasingly limited access to meaningful, gainful work,” the report states.
It also found certain groups, including racialized, Indigenous, newcomers, 2SLGBTQ+, people living with disabilities, low-income and those living in Toronto Community Housing, face “disproportionate barriers to employment.”
The report draws from a city-wide postcard campaign launched in 2024 that gave a voice to students facing a difficult job market. The Toronto Youth Cabinet, in partnership with The Neighbourhood Group Community Services, heard directly from 7,265 youth who shared their experiences, aspirations, and challenges through a city-wide postcard survey.
On Breakfast Television, Nudel shared some of the messages they’ve received from young people.
“They’re saying that they’re having such a hard time because they don’t have any experience, so they’re unable to get a job and they’re unable to get a job because they don’t have any experience. So we see youth having hundreds of applications and not hearing back from employers,” said Nudel.
“We saw a lot of youth saying that they are in need of making money to be able to support themselves and their family, whether it be saving for university, whether it be for their own personal needs, but what we’re really hearing is that they want to contribute to their family as well. So they’re not looking for a handout, they’re just looking for an opportunity to thrive,” she said.
Among the key findings (as released in the report):
- 64 per cent of youth said a job would reduce their dependence on parents and help them take control of
- their financial lives to support with urgent needs like food, rent, and transportation
- 75 per cent of respondents said a meaningful job must align with their passions, values, or sense of purpose — including opportunities to give back to their communities
- 74 per cent of youth cited structural, systemic, or logistical barriers — including transportation,
- inaccessible job locations, and competing responsibilities like school or caregiving.
- 77 per cent reported that a lack of qualifications, prior experience, or training held them back from accessing opportunities.
- Nearly 60 per cent said their identity or how employers perceive them (race, age, language, gender, disability) created barriers to employment — making discrimination the most cited challenge.
The report also found a correlation between youth unemployment and youth violence in Toronto.
“We’re hearing the youth voices say that if they had a job, if they had opportunities for growth, if they had hope, that this would divert them away from engaging in violence. As we see increasing violence in the city, we need every solution we can to help address it,” Nudel said.
“Different levels of government need to come together. We need to have the private sector. We need to have social service agencies. We all need to get to the table to come together to come up with a solution. A problem of this magnitude isn’t solved by one group alone. It involves a real collaborative effort if we’re actually going to make a difference.”
City council had passed a motion to create 10,000 additional youth jobs by the summer of 2026.
“We see that there has been a commitment from City Hall, but we really need people to come together to push this forward. We see it in paper, but now we need to see it in action. We need to see the different levels of government. We need to see the leadership from the city. We need to see the private sector, and we all need to come together, and I think that with the intention in place, we’re going to be able to make a difference and move this forward,” Nudel said.
Read the full report below:
With files from The Canadian Press
