The issue of increased unemployment had particularly severe implications on young adults trying to enter the labor market after school to look for their first job. Between 2008 and 2009, youth unemployment increased by 3.4 points. It reached 16.7 percent at the end of 2020. After the economic recession, the average duration of unemployment rose to 21.3 weeks in 2011, before falling to 15.2 weeks on average as of 2020. The most common reasons for being unemployed given by Canadian respondents were "not working in the last year" or "never worked" in 2020.
The recovery from the economic recession in Canada also correlated with growth in employment. As of 2020, there was a total of 18.06 million employed persons in Canada. This was an increase of roughly an additional million employed individuals, compared to 2008 employment data.The employment rate among people with higher education levels was generally above the national average, at 70 percent for those with a Bachelor's degree in 2020.
In 2020, the highest number of jobs among Canadian provinces was in Ontario with more than 6.86 million employed or self-employed persons. In that year, the industry providing the most jobs was retail trade, with a little less than two million Canadians employed.
It is projected that the Canadian economy will continue to grow and that the unemployment rate in Canada until 2026 will remain at between six and seven percent. According to the Canadian employment growth forecast, over the period of 2019 to 2028, the industry with the fastest growth, at an annual rate of 2.2 percent on average, will be the health care industry.
