Photograph by Andrew Tolson
Coming of age in a time of economic uncertainty can also take an emotional toll. In the five months since Rajinder Ghoman was laid off from her customer service job with British Airways, the 27-year-old single mom, who is living with her parents in Brampton, Ont., has spent her days attending job fairs and scouring the Internet for openings. But after submitting more than 50 applications, she’s only received three calls—none have ended in an offer. With her Employment Insurance set to expire in two months, she says her self-esteem is “not too good right now.”
While most of the country’s unemployed youth will eventually find jobs, studies suggest that these experiences can have lasting psychological effects, too. A recent article in The Atlantic cited a battery of disheartening findings: individuals who endure long bouts of unemployment in their teens and early 20s are more at risk of developing drinking problems; those who started their careers during Japan’s “lost generation” now account for 60 per cent of employer-reported cases of depression and stress; and periods of unemployment, especially early on, literally shave years off of a person’s life.
Academics have, understandably, been quick to reverse the rosy futures they once predicted for today’s youth. Some have gone so far as to say that the “millennials,” who were once described as an entitled generation with a poor work ethic, are at risk of becoming lost. Like the children of the Great Depression, the argument goes, these kids will have their ambitions thwarted by uncertain times, and hold on to their jobs—and pennies—for dear life.
But according to Beaudry, this is “an exaggerated kind of comparison.” While the relative losses have been substantial, the fallout we’re currently experiencing is nothing like what occurred in the 1930s. Today’s kids are also much more affluent than they were back then. As Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist for the Bank of Montreal, points out, even with the recent setback, the markets are still higher than they were 20 years ago, and “when you look at the household balance sheet,” he says, “a lot of the losses have been recouped.” Add that to the fact that government has been focusing on job creation, and the outlook is more optimistic. “We can turn this thing around without doing lasting damage to the prospects of youth today.”
To minimize the implications, says economist Yalnizyan, government should do more to improve access to Employment Insurance and social assistance. “We should be enhancing those automatic stabilizers that prevent the middle class from entering economic free fall,” she says. At the same time, the downturn, she adds, is an opportunity to make tuitions more affordable and address the impending shortage of trained professionals in fields like medicine.
As for Cantin, he’s looking at the warehouse job as a stopgap until he goes back to school—something he’s been thinking about a lot in the past few months. He hopes a master’s in history will be enough to land his dream job. But part of him wonders if he’ll just be digging himself an even larger financial hole, only to get stonewalled again. “I try and stay optimistic. But for the most part,” he says, “I just try not to think about it.”
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