After I graduated with a master’s degree in public health, my summer goal was to land a research position at Alberta Health Services (AHS), having secured a direct referral.

Take this casual Research Associate position at the Arthur Child Cancer Centre, which requires a master’s degree and at least three years of relevant research experience, and an advertised wage range of $31.64–$54.36 per hour.¹

It wasn’t an entry-level position; however, I have rarely found more than a few entry-level research listings. I applied to this, along with dozens more over several months, with no follow-up beyond automated acknowledgements.  

Given the body of evidence around this, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Finch et al. researched a notable decline in entry-level work and described the “experience paradox”, where jobs require years of experience, but gaining years of experience requires work.² Modestino et al. found that, for US job postings, employers tend to raise their hiring requirements when applicants are more plentiful, or when unemployment is high.³

What about other Calgarians? On March 26, thousands of youths lined up at the Big Four to apply to over 80 employers.⁴ The September 4 Labour Force Survey found that, in August, youth unemployment rose 0.3 percentage points to 12.9 per cent.⁵

Calgary Economic Region’s (CER’s) overall unemployment rate was 6.7 per cent in August.⁶ The City’s report states that Calgary’s youth (age 15–24) labour force shrank by 8.5 per cent and employment decreased by 5.3 per cent year over year, which in turn lowered the youth unemployment rate to 16.3 per cent.⁶

It should be noted that Calgary’s overall employment grew by 5 per cent over the year,⁶ and that the main CER numbers use seasonally unadjusted three-month averages; thus they are not interchangeable with the national statistics.

A lower unemployment rate and shrinking labour force

Statistics Canada describes discouraged workers as those who wanted to work and were available, but are not searching because they believed suitable work was unavailable.⁷

This could explain some of the youth labour force contraction in Calgary, although its report does not identify why they left the labour force.

While I was working at this year’s Stampede, I spoke with several youth co-workers and I found that the biggest icebreaker was to talk about the state of the job market.

Adam (name was anonymized for privacy reasons), a software development grad from SAIT, was unable to land a job matching his diploma. He partially attributes his difficulties in the job market to AI and has stopped applying in his field, now considering an exploratory pivot to the trades.

Now consider Bob (name also anonymized), another software development grad from SAIT.

Before Stampede, he mentioned attending the Northland Hiring Fair for the Italian Centre Shop on May 9, and despite showing up early, he estimated hundreds of other applicants lining up behind him.⁹

He was not hired.

Bob said it was a combination of factors, specifically an economic downturn dissuading businesses from hiring, and immigration heavily expanding the competition in his field.

According to him, the former has made it difficult to find retail work, while he believes the latter explains why it’s impossible to find a job matching his diploma. While the immigration explanation is politically relevant and personal to Bob, the statistics on hand do not corroborate it.

Working in a chosen field

The relationship between work-related educational circumstances and well-being is complex. Dupéré et al. found that being employed in a job related to one’s studies was marginally associated with higher life satisfaction.¹⁰

A day before the August Labour Force Survey, a Globe and Mail Opinion from Doug Saunders described federal immigration slowdowns as a hindrance to current economic growth.¹¹

He also called for an expedited permanent residency process to fill much of the projected 410,000–520,000 more workers for the construction industry than what the domestic population could provide, by 2030.¹¹

How would Adam become sufficiently trained and enter the construction industry while avoiding the “experience paradox”? What about Bob, who has effectively given up on the job market after working at the Stampede and has, in subsequent conversations, maintained his beliefs in response to the opinion?

Some comments suggested that efforts should be focused on training citizens and those already unemployed.¹¹

A paid-work-experience model already exists in the Canada Summer Jobs program, which subsidizes wages for youth aged 15–30 for 6–16 weeks, and was expanded from over 75,000 jobs in 2025 to up to 100,000 announced in 2026.¹²

My proposal would be to test a year-round model informed by CSJ, subsidizing field-relevant, supervised entry opportunities tailored for graduates. Success would be measured by gained relevant experience and sustained, suitable employment.

My second proposal is to distinguish a falling unemployment rate associated with more employment from one associated with labour-force withdrawal, which could help us investigate reasons for it and what it would take to help discouraged people re-enter.

This could help with understanding barriers to entry, while informing outreach to people that ordinary recruitment cannot reach.

The experiences of Adam, Bob, and me are all different in substance.

Improving employment should go beyond an improved headline unemployment rate and include tangible access to study-related opportunities, especially to people struggling to enter the workforce.

My ask is for employers and policymakers to test and evaluate the most credible paid entry routes, while investigating barriers to labour participation.

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Contributed by Steven Minh Phat Duong

Biography: Steven Minh Phat Duong is a recent Master of Public Health graduate, born and raised in Calgary, and is currently researching unemployment as a social determinant of health in combination with pharmacoepidemiology.

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Note: This Perspective draws on some of the same sources as my essay “Youth Labour-Market Indicators as Sentinel Inputs for Public Health Surveillance: A Framework for Canada” submitted to the Canadian Journal of Public Health. As of this writing, the manuscript is under review. A preprint is publicly available (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21904861)

References

1. Alberta Health Services. Research Associate in Calgary Zone, Calgary, Arthur Child Cancer Centre. Research Associate. June 5, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://careers.albertahealthservices.ca/jobs/research-associate-578023
2. Finch D, Murgatroyd S, Cook C, Griffiths J, Levallet N, Saunders C. Entry-Level Jobs – The Canary in Canada’s Labour Market Coal Mine. 2026. Accessed July 23, 2026. https://www.learningcity.ca/series3/report1
3. Modestino AS, Shoag D, Ballance J. Upskilling: Do Employers Demand Greater Skill When Workers Are Plentiful? The Review of Economics and Statistics. 2020;102(4):793-805. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00835
4. Said A. Thousands of young Calgarians gather at City’s 27th annual youth hiring fair. CBC. March 27, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/thousands-of-young-calgarians-gather-at-city-s-27th-annual-youth-hiring-fair-9.7143537
5. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. The Daily — Labour Force Survey, August 2026. Statcan.gc.ca. September 4, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260904/dq260904a-eng.htm
6. City of Calgary. Labour Market Review | August 2026. 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/www/cfod/finance/documents/corporate-economics/labour-market-review/2026/Labour-Market-Review-2026-08.pdf
7. Statistics Canada. The Guide to the Labour Force Survey. Statcan.gc.ca. April 4, 2025. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-543-g/71-543-g2025001-eng.htm
8. Statistics Canada. Quality of life indicator: Labour underutilization. Statcan.gc.ca. March 25, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/hub-carrefour/quality-life-qualite-vie/prosperity-prosperite/labour-main-doeuvre-eng.htm
9. Italian Centre Shop Calgary’s Post – Facebook. May 1, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.facebook.com/italiancentreshopcalgary/posts/were-hiring-join-us-at-our-northland-hiring-fair-and-become-part-of-the-italian-/1603133218483836/
10. Dupéré V, Caron-Diotte M, Beauregard N, et al. Employment and the youth mental health crisis in Canada: distinct influences across phases of the school-to-work transition. Frontiers in public health. 2025;13:1601463. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1601463
11. Saunders D. Canada wants to be ambitious. That means getting immigration going again. The Globe and Mail. September 3, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canada-lower-immigration-targets-economic-growth-doug-saunders/
12. Employment and Social Development Canada. Canada Summer Jobs 2026: Youth hiring period now open, with up to 100,000 jobs available. Canada.ca. April 20, 2026. Accessed September 6, 2026. https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2026/04/canada-summer-jobs-2026-youth-hiring-period-now-open-with-up-to-100000-jobs-available.html