Youth hiring fell most in jobs least exposed to AI

Hiring of young workers in Canada has fallen furthest in occupations that are least exposed to artificial intelligence, according to a Statistics Canada study released Oct. 28 that found little evidence AI has so far reduced hiring or raised job losses.

The agency’s hiring rate for employees aged 15 to 29 in the occupations least exposed to AI dropped from 4.0 per cent in the six months before November 2022, when ChatGPT became widely available, to 3.3 per cent in the six months before August 2026. In jobs highly exposed to AI and less able to work alongside it, the roles most open to substitution, the rate slipped from 3.2 per cent to 3.0 per cent. In jobs highly exposed but also highly complementary with AI, it eased from 2.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

By our calculation from those published rates, the declines were 0.7, 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points. In relative terms that is about 18 per cent for the least exposed jobs, six per cent for the highly exposed, less complementary jobs and 14 per cent for the highly exposed, highly complementary jobs. The group of jobs where AI is least expected to matter saw the steepest slide.

One subset did stand out. Hiring in coding-intensive occupations, which the study counts within the highly exposed group, fell from 2.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent over the same period. But the study said that rate began dropping in early 2022, before ChatGPT was released, after reaching a 15-year high of 5.8 per cent in the six months before November 2021. Measured from that peak, the 1.9 per cent rate is about two-thirds lower. The job separation rate in those occupations rose from 2.4 per cent to 3.5 per cent, though Statistics Canada noted the trend was more volatile, possibly because of a relatively small sample.

Separation rates elsewhere barely moved. For workers aged 15 to 29 in highly exposed, highly complementary jobs the rate stayed around 2.2 per cent, in line with the past two decades. It averaged roughly 2.9 per cent in highly exposed, less complementary jobs and settled around 3.2 per cent in the least exposed jobs. Hiring rates for workers aged 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 were lower and more stable than for the youngest group, as they usually are because younger workers are more likely to be entering the workforce or changing jobs.

The study’s authors said it is unclear whether lower hiring reflects disruptive technology or the combined effect of other forces, including rapid population shifts, trade shocks and the adjustment after the post-pandemic recovery. Hiring rates measure the share of employees who are new hires in a given month. They are not a count of jobs lost to AI.

The release landed the same day as Statistics Canada’s fall summary of the Canadian economy, which said employment contracted in August and September and that most of the net decline reflected lower public sector employment. We reported on that shift in our look at the public sector shedding 70,000 jobs, after the September jobs report in which Canada lost 68,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 6.5 per cent. The city-level picture is in our unemployment rate by city table.

A separate Statistics Canada study, also released Oct. 28, looked at how young people with degrees are faring. In 2025, 69 per cent of non-students aged 25 to 34 with a bachelor’s degree or higher were employed in permanent, full-time positions. That was down from a peak of 71 per cent in 2022 but above the 65 per cent average from 2017 to 2019. The share was slightly below that of young adults with a trades certificate or diploma (71 per cent) and above those with a high school diploma (56 per cent) or less than high school (43 per cent).

The wage gap remains wide. Young university graduates averaged $39.18 an hour in 2025, compared with $34.71 for trades certificate or diploma holders, $31.39 for college or CEGEP graduates, $28.77 for high school graduates and $26.97 for those without a high school diploma. By our calculation, that is a premium of about 13 per cent over trades holders, 25 per cent over college graduates, 36 per cent over high school graduates and 45 per cent over those without a diploma. Real wage growth has been modest. From 2019 to 2025, inflation-adjusted hourly wages rose 1.8 per cent among men and 2.5 per cent among women in the group.

Gender gaps persisted but narrowed in some areas. In 2025, 72 per cent of young men with a bachelor’s degree or higher held permanent, full-time jobs, compared with 66 per cent of women, a six-point gap. Women earned $0.92 for every dollar earned by men, virtually unchanged from the average since 1997. Female graduates with a child aged six or younger at home were less likely to hold permanent, full-time work (62 per cent) than women without young children (67 per cent), while no comparable difference was seen among men.

Twenty-five per cent of young women and 15 per cent of young men with a bachelor’s degree or higher were covered by a collective agreement. Access to an employer-sponsored pension plan reached 60 per cent for women and 56 per cent for men. Overqualification showed little change: 14 per cent of women and 15 per cent of men were working in jobs that typically require no postsecondary education.

For a young worker, the two studies point the same way. A degree still carries a clear wage and job-security advantage, and the slowdown in youth hiring began before generative AI arrived and has been sharper where AI is least expected to matter. That does not rule out an effect later, and Statistics Canada described its findings as early evidence.

How we did this: we used the figures published in Statistics Canada’s Hiring and job separation rates in the era of generative artificial intelligence (Economic and Social Reports, Oct. 28, 2026) and How are young Canadian university graduates faring in the recent labour market? (Insights on Canadian Society, Oct. 28, 2026). The percentage-point changes, relative declines and wage premiums are our own arithmetic on those published figures. The hiring study uses Labour Force Survey microdata for employees aged 15 to 64 in the 10 provinces, seasonally adjusted, with six-month moving averages and an AI exposure index from Felten and colleagues and Pizzinelli and colleagues. The graduates study covers non-students aged 25 to 34 using annual Labour Force Survey data. We have asked no one for comment on this story.

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