As Brock students may know, the 2025 youth summer job market was especially brutal. Many corporations utilized A.I. to cut down on internships, summer jobs and entry-level graduate opportunities in a bid to increase profits and competitiveness.
As it stands, the current youth unemployment rate for returning students aged 15 to 24 sits around 17.5 per cent, the highest since July 2009, when only 53.6 per cent of youth were employed; the lowest rate of employment since 1998.
Most of the discourse concerning youth unemployment and the general difficulties of the job market focuses on the federal government’s temporary foreign workers program, as British Columbia Premier Eby and opposition leader Pierre Poilievre call for its reform or removal.
However, less attention has been given to the role artificial intelligence (A.I.) has played in the 2025 youth job market. In both traditionally white-collar roles (office work) and blue-collar roles (field work), A.I. has been used to aggressively cut staff.
Currently, Statistics Canada projections indicate that over 40 per cent of the Canadian workforce is at high risk of being replaced by technology in the future. Workers aged 22-25 in A.I.-exposed occupations have experienced a 13 per cent relative decline in employment.
The decision to use A.I. to cut entry-level positions arises from private corporations seeking to increase profit by reducing staffing costs; this trend is most visible and advocated for by software startups seeking to become profitable earlier in their funding cycles.
In interviews conducted by The Globe and Mail, Canadian tech CEOs detailed the levels at which employees were being laid off from their corporations in favour of A.I. Jason Smith, CEO of Klue Labs Inc., details how he “told employees that in about a week, up to half of them could be laid off […] he believed Klue let go of 85 people, about 40 per cent of the company”.
These types of decisions are no longer uncommon in the job market and have led to uncertainty among Canadians and global youth. In addition to its effects on full-time employment, A.I. has been wreaking havoc on white-collar summer internship opportunities, with many corporations replacing interns and entry-level positions with A.I.
This new wave of A.I. automation is not just limited to traditional white-collar jobs; it extends into remaining blue-collar jobs. Machine operation and driving jobs with the Prince Rupert Port Authority are a clear example of this as they plan to employ self-driving trucks. Currently, driving jobs make up a significant portion of the workforce.
A.I. is currently changing the way society functions to the point where CEOs such as Sam Altman are suggesting that an A.I. future will come with a “rewriting of the social contract”. When or if this rewriting happens is unclear, and who it would benefit is even more unclear as the future and its leaders cannot be predicted.
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While the impacts of A.I. will be vast, they won’t be localized to a single field or profession. Instead, they will impact every career and the greater function and organization of society. Until then, youth will continue to bear the brunt of this uncertainty and change as society shifts. Though, there is some comfort to be found in how just about everyone will be a part of this conversation.