Young Canadians experienced the highest unemployment in 2008, according to a Statistics Canada release issued at the beginning of January.
In 2008, employment dropped 2% (-52,000) for youth aged 15–24, while their unemployment rate increased by 1.8% over the same period, more than any other age group. They were particularly hard hit in December, with 37,000 jobs lost. Meanwhile, their unemployment rate increased by 0.6% in December to 12.9%.
Conversely, workers aged 55 years and over recorded growth in employment of 4.2% (+109,000) during the year, but also saw an increase in unemployment from 4.7% to 5.6% in 2008.
Globally, employment only increased 0.6% (+98,000) in Canada between December 2007 and December 2008, for net growth significantly less than the previous year (2.2%). The record unemployment rate of 5.8% at the start of 2008 climbed 0.8% higher by the end of the year, with most of the increase coming in the last quarter. According to Statistics Canada, this poor perforamance was mainly driven by a strong drop in construction in December—one of the highest monthly losses in this sector in three decades.