Alberta students face an uphill battle as unemployment climbs to 7.8 per cent.
Alberta’s job market is tightening as students struggle to find part-time work during a riding unemployment rate and shrinking job vacancies.
Career posters done by MacEwan Career Services.
Alberta’s unemployment rate has risen 0.2 per cent since October 2024, standing at 7.8 per cent, according to the Alberta Economic Dashboard. This comes in the midst of students and recent graduates across the province struggling to find work amongst fewer job vacancies.
Nationally, Statistics Canada reported a “pleasant surprise” with 67,000 new jobs added across the country in October, lowering the federal unemployment rate to 6.9 per cent. But Alberta’s numbers tell a different story. Job vacancies have declined sharply since 2022, according to the Alberta Job Vacancy Report, leaving many young Albertans struggling to find stable employment despite a growing labour force.
For students like Eniola Ajagun, a nursing student at MacEwan University, the search for work has been long and disheartening. “I’ve been looking for a job since June 2024,” she said. Ajagun currently holds a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in psychology, returning to MacEwan this year as a first-year student. Ajagun explained that her interest in the nursing program is something that precedes her struggles finding work, but that some of the decision to return was made “just to get a job.”
Ajagun added that part-time opportunities are particularly scarce, with most employers seeking full-time workers with open availability as opposed to part-timers or employees with variable schedules. She also explained that with the workload of the nursing program, she is unable to balance both schoolwork and a full-time job, saying that it would be “impossible.”
The Royal Bank of Canada released an article highlighting that the disconnect between provincial and federal labour markets may be due to the rapid growth in the labour force outpacing job creation, particularly for younger workers.
For Ajagun, living with her family has lifted some of this burden, but many other students aren’t as fortunate.
“This will definitely be worse for people that are in a less privileged position than me,” said Ajagun. “As I said, I at least have a place to come home to.”
