LOST
GENERATION
tions and, above all, “get as much
support as you can.”
Following that prescription is
harder than dispensing it. Palot
thinks of himself as a hard worker, capable and pragmatic, but
two years of going without work
is undermining his sense of value.
“I feel I’m projecting the image
of someone with no willpower, someone who is waiting for
something to happen and doesn’t
see anything happening,” he says.
It’s a state of mind that lends
itself to bad habits. “There are
times you do nothing,” he says,
“because you’re at the end of
your rope.”
JUSTIFYING THE RISK
For Samantha Ostrov of Halifax,
Nova Scotia, finding a job feels
like more than a personal requirement. She carries the extra
burden of needing to validate her
parents’ decision to cash in some
of their retirement savings to finance her degree.
Yet in the three-plus years since
she graduated from University of
King’s College with a bachelor’s
degree in political science, she’s
struggled to secure stable work.
Like many young Canadians, she’s
battled underemployment, applying
HUFFINGTON
10.20.13
for jobs that make little use of her
education just to make ends meet.
“It makes for an awkward job interview when you have to address
the discrepancy between your degree and the job you are interviewing for,” Ostrov tells HuffPost Canada via email. “It is unclear when
applying for any given job whether
you are under or over-qualified,
whether your experience or university degrees are relevant.”
Her parents paid for her first
two years of university, and she
then relied on loans to complete
her degree. Since graduation, loan
payments have become her most
stressful expense. “I’ve always understood the reality of a loan, but I
never anticipated how the struggle
for consistent work would prolong
the repayment process,” she says.
Ostrov is merely one pixel in
the picture of youth employment
in Canada, as those between
the ages of 15 and 24 continue
to fight for jobs that older Canadians are increasingly hanging onto in the face of their own
economic uncertainties.
Canada’s economy has braved
the global recession better than
many others. But last year, 14.3
percent of Canadian youth were
unemployed, up from 11.2 percent in 2007 and double the current national jobless rate of 7.2
percent, according to Statistics