Graduates in Canada – A ‘lost generation’ really ?

Statistics Canada released the first data from the new National Graduates’ Survey. To put it mildly, this new data blows both of those narratives out of the water.

The NGS is designed to report on the fate of graduates two years after graduation. What was released last week was the 2012 employment and income situation of students who graduated in 2010. It’s particularly instructive to compare this data with the survey’s 2005-07 data, since one was conducted in the midst of a boom and the other in the midst of what feels like a never-ending period of stagnation.

And what do we find when we make these comparisons? Well, first, among graduates who did not pursue further educational credentials (that is, who went into the workforce), employment rates for both bachelor’s and college grads in 2012 were exactly the same as they were in 2007.

Remarkably, from the height of the boom to the middle of the current “recession,” there’s essentially no difference either in terms of overall employment or in terms of full-time employment. To the extent that there are people struggling and having a hard time finding a job, it’s business as usual: the proportion has not changed since the height of the boom (for both college and university grads, the unemployment rate in both periods was 5 per cent, with another 5 per cent not in the labour force).

via Here’s proof graduates aren’t an underemployed ‘lost generation’ – The Globe and Mail.

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• Grads Job Search in UK / Nearly 40% still hunting after six months
• US / 41% of college grads overqualified for what they do
• Grads in Canada / RBC Launches New Internship For Recent College and University Graduates
• Young and Jobless in Ontario / A report by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives