Youth employment instability significant from 2007 to 2009

According to a new Statistics Canada paper examining the number of youth experiencing employment instability between 2007 and 2009, young adults bore a disproportionate share of job losses in the aftermath of the economic downturn of 2008. Employment instability was defined as the share of working non-students, age 16 to 29, who, 2 years later, were either working in a temporary or part-time job or were not employed. The study concluded that 23% of non-student workers (451,000) age 16 to 29 in 2007 experienced some form of employment instability in 2009. Of these, 56% were in temporary jobs (part time or full time), 26% were working in permanent part-time jobs, and 19% did not work at all in 2009. Education had little bearing on the degree of employment instability, while age and experience did to some extent. Paper