With 12 years under her belt working in corporate events management, 33-year-old Aiman has applied to hundreds of jobs in Canada and has yet to secure one.
The Toronto resident was laid off in December 2023, right before Christmas, and has been seriously looking for employment since last January.
She applied to a total of about 300 jobs in 2024 — around 10 a week — to no avail.
“I feel like I’m hitting a wall,” she told us over the phone. “I’m trying not to panic about it.”
With the new year in full swing, Aiman is trying to remain optimistic about her job prospects, an outlook not shared by most Canadians.
According to a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of employment agency Express Employment Professionals, almost half of people looking for jobs in Canada believe there will be fewer employment opportunities in their field in 2025 compared to a year ago.
This is a significant increase from 2024’s survey, when only 31 per cent of job seekers expected fewer opportunities than the previous year. Additionally, less than one in five Canadians (18 per cent) believe there will be more job opportunities in their field this year.
“A lot of us are in the same boat,” said Aiman.
“Why can’t I find a job?”
Last Thursday, TD Economics released a report analyzing the Canadian job market amid economic uncertainty.
Using data from Statistics Canada, it found that over the past two and a half years, the unemployment rate increased by a staggering two percentage points, peaking at 6.9 per cent before decreasing slightly to 6.6 per cent in January this year.
According to the report, Canadian youth have been impacted the most, with the joblessness rate for workers aged 15 to 24 surging over five percentage points, reaching a peak of 14.2 per cent at the end of 2024.
“Levels typically seen in past recessions,” it reads.
In comparison, Canadians in their prime working age (25 to 54 years old) have an unemployment rate of just 5.6 per cent, which TD says is below pre-pandemic levels.
The analysis notes that the dismal youth unemployment rate coincides with the growth of the non-permanent resident (NPR) population.
“NPRs are generally young, with many falling in the 15 to 24 age group, as students and younger workers comprise the majority of new arrivals,” reads the report.
However, even the newcomer unemployment rate has reached high levels, peaking at 12.6 per cent in 2024.
Ontario city has worst unemployment rate in Canada and Toronto’s isn’t much betterhttps://t.co/UAqjvAKNWF
— blogTO (@blogTO) September 11, 2024
“What’s clear is that newcomers to Canada are struggling to find employment,” suggests the report.
While it acknowledges the elevated unemployment rate, TD Economics argues that the job market is starting 2025 strong.
Based on StatsCan data, the report says annual employment growth has consistently outpaced pre-pandemic levels, with the labour market producing another 385,000 positions this past year. It says hiring has been strong as well.
“Indeed, for all of Canada’s economic challenges – weak economic growth, poor productivity and deteriorating housing affordability – the job market has been serving as a pillar of economic stability,” reads the report.
So, why do most Canadians have such a pessimistic outlook on their employment prospects this year?
A quick search on Reddit shows just how much Canadians have been in the trenches when it comes to looking for jobs this past year.
One post from five months ago in the subreddit Ask Canada titled “Why can’t I find a job?” details the experience of a newcomer from the United Kingdom.
They say they trained in law in the U.K., did a master’s in finance and have work experience in banking.
It seems that trying to land a gig has been a struggle for far too many Canadians.
“Now that I have a few years experience, I wanted to come over here [which has been my dream for years] and thought that I’d be pretty employable with expertise in both law and finance, but 160 applications later, literally nothing has come up,” they wrote.
Another person in the Kitchener, Ont., subreddit shared their experience struggling to find jobs as a newly graduated nurse last year.
“JOBS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND IN CANADA! RIDICULOUS!” reads their post. “I’m a graduated nurse [last year August, fully licensed in January of this year] and have been non-stop applying to multiple jobs everywhere, including Toronto. The job market is OFFICIALLY DOGS**T.”
Just one of countless recent social media posts about how hard it is to find a job in Canada, regardless of industry.
Aiman thinks one reason it has been hard to secure employment is that companies have also been suffering amid a weak economy.
“My manager and I were both let go. They basically dissolved the entire marketing department,” she said. “I think it was just that they couldn’t afford to pay us because it wasn’t a hot market. Companies weren’t making money, and marketing is usually the first thing they let go of.”
She adds another factor that may be affecting her chances is possible discrimination during the hiring process.
“I do think the fact that I’m an immigrant probably plays into it,” she explained. Aiman immigrated to Canada from Dubai in 2018.
One global study from 2019 found “racial and ethnic discrimination” in the hiring process in Canada after conducting field experiments using fake resumes with the same information but different names.
They measured discrimination by calculating the percentage of interview callbacks that applicants with non-white sounding names received versus names that signalled white ethnicity.
Jobs in Canada mean “work is harder, pay is less”
There’s also the pay issue. With over a decade of experience, Aiman would prefer not to settle for a lower salary.
“I’m 33 years old. I live alone. I won’t move in with a roommate at this point in my life. If I take a lower-paying job, that’s exactly what I will have to do,” she said. “It’s just really hard to survive in Canada with the kind of money they give you.”
One Ontario resident, who has asked to remain anonymous, emailed with a similar perspective.
She said she used to have a full-time position with a $40,000 salary. She could afford an apartment for $800 a month, paying for hydro, a car, and her bills, and had extra money to save.
“That same apartment rose to $1,250 when I left. With the costs of everything rising and most workplaces not giving raises despite the minimum wage increase, that is now poverty,” she shared. “You cannot even afford your own apartment with a salary.”
The Ontarian says she’s been applying to jobs for years, trying to find positions with better pay in her industry, but hasn’t received any callbacks despite having a decade of work experience.
“I had to move in with family, consider going into debt to go back to school to start at a base salary all over again, and I have no idea what my future will look like,” she said.
Aiman recounted one interview she nabbed late last year where they insinuated she wasn’t loyal because she constantly moved jobs. They asked what would make her stay at the company.
“If you paid me enough, I would not leave,” she explained.
The Ontarian who emailed agreed with this sentiment, adding that companies combine positions to have one person do multiple jobs.
“You become a workhorse with barely enough pay to survive. We question why our generation doesn’t stick with their company. There is no appreciation, the work is harder, the pay is less and you get nowhere in life,” she said.
What to do on your job-seeking journey
Stephanie Koonar, co-founder and career coach at PeerSpectives Consulting, says one of the challenges is that Canadians don’t have a lot of support for job-seeking nowadays.
“People sometimes get it in universities, and maybe there’s some employment coaching, but a lot of people don’t have the skills to help them really articulate what their strengths are and actually know where they would be a good fit,” she said.
She adds they use the Gallup Strengths Assessment to help job seekers hone in on what they’re good at and what energizes them so they know what opportunities to seek out that require exactly what they can offer.
Koonar adds that when looking for positions, everyone is doing the same thing: applying to jobs posted online.
“We do know there’s such a thing as a hidden job market, and there are opportunities that may even come up that are never posted,” she explained.
She encourages people to tap into the hidden market by getting off the sites and looking for opportunities in their industry’s communities. This could mean reaching out to your industry’s provincial association and going to networking events.
Koonar also suggests going for informational coffee chats with people in your field and considering whether you might need more education or a certification that you’re missing.
“While you’re even speaking to somebody for an informational interview, you can ask for another name. We call it hop hop,” she explained.
“Oftentimes, they will use their own personal network and suggest somebody to you…and you’re hopping and hopping and connecting to people that are in the industry, having more than just your resume come across their desk.”
Aiman is joining networking groups and having informational chats with other people in her industry. She’s also considering getting a career coach to figure out why she can’t land a job but recognizes that hiring one isn’t cheap, either.
“Don’t give up”
While looking for a job in Canada has been an uphill battle for some people, others have reached the peak.
One person on Reddit shared their experience moving from the Philippines and trying to find a job in Canada.
They were approved for a work permit in February 2024 and applied non-stop for IT jobs, regardless of whether it was entry-level or an internship, despite their experience back home. They even got more IT certifications to beef up their resume.
Eight months later, they finally landed a job.
“I’m sharing not to brag, but to inspire if you are going through same journey as mine. Don’t give up. Do something to upscale your craft and pray hard, it really works,” reads the post.
Aiman says it’s helpful to hear stories about others going through the same struggles.
“It’s really important to keep talking to people and realizing you’re not alone in this because every time I do end up talking to someone, I end up losing a bit of my imposter syndrome,” she said.
The Toronto resident says she’s privileged she can live off of the savings she made in Dubai.
“I’m extremely lucky that I can hold out and not take a lower paying job because I have all this financial support, but to what end? I’m not made of money,” she said.
Even though she was making more money working for top companies in Dubai, Aiman wants to stay in Canada because of the community she’s fostered and the freedom she has to be queer. But if she can’t secure a job in Toronto, her last resort is to move back.
“I miss working, honestly… I feel like I’m just floating in time and space.”
