CalgaryLiberal

Nobody has really brought up youth unemployment lately. Err, or at all.

It’s not a priority for the Conservatives since, as the old trope goes, the youth don’t vote and even if they did they’d vote Green, Liberal, or NDP. Not a group they particularly want to either kowtow to or support, and therefore they do not.

The NDP are running around doing their regular thing, nipping at the heels of the Liberals as the Opposition’s opposition.

And, well, there’s a noticeable lack of discourse in general about youth unemployment.

And it’s going to hurt Canada in the long term if it isn’t resolved.

As it currently stands youth (15-24) unemployment is pegged at 15.2%, around double the national average, and that isn’t including people who have simply given up.

Am I calling on the government to help out? No. It’s just that this trend will, and I guarantee it, harm and haunt all those involved in politics and in Canada.

In an economy that has an emphasis on previous experience, accreditation, and references, the graduating classes, high school or otherwise, over the next while will be hurt. There is a pressure in this economy to have previous experience and in the long term where a portion of the population has been targeted by this there’ll be a sizable portion of Canadians that will find it continually difficult to find gainful employment. It’s going to hurt Canada in the long term.

As a student paying for his own education out of his own pocket, working his buttox off to try to graduate without debt, and struggling, I can say that a lot of my fellow university students will go deeper into debt come September. Cuts in university funding by both level of governments, increases in tuition, and increases in “fees”, are going to hurt students and youth even more.

Both immediately and in the long term we’re going to be hit, and hit hard, as Canadians by this ambivalence and malfeasance. It’s almost like nobody is backing us up here. It’s like youth unemployment, the cuts to education, and ambivalence towards youth by all those in Ottawa. It’s frustrating to say the least.

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