Hot summer job market for university and college students

With unemployment and job vacancy rates both hitting records this spring, the summer job market for university and college students has rarely been better.

Nearly half (49.8%) of returning students aged 15 to 24 were employed in May, up 2.8 percentage points from May 2019 (47.0%), prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and well above the level recorded in May 2021 (39.5%).

Over half of female returning students (53.3%) were employed in May, 1.5 percentage points higher than the previous record high set in May 2019. Their unemployment rate was the lowest rate recorded in May, at 10.2%.

For male returning students, the May employment rate (45.8%) was 4.0 percentage points higher than in 2019 and the highest since May 1991, while the May unemployment rate (13.0%) was the lowest since 1990.

An added bonus is that returning students working this summer are earning more money on average. Average hourly wages for returning students were up 5.7% compared with 12 months earlier to $16.82 in May, including a 10.5% year-over-year increase in wages for students working in the accommodation and food services industry to $15.99. Wages for students in this industry were likely impacted by increases of minimum wages introduced by several provinces in 2022 and the elimination of the special minimum wage for liquor servers in Ontario in January 2022.

In June, conditions continued to be favourable for students in the summer job market. The employment rate among returning students aged 15 to 24 was higher in June (53.2%) than before the pandemic in June 2019 (51.2%), mirroring the situation observed in May 2022.

A notable part of this increase is attributable to female students aged 20 to 24, more than three-quarters (76.0%) of whom were employed in June. This was the highest June employment rate recorded for this group since comparable data first became available in 1977.

Stay tuned: student employment rates tend to increase in July, as more youth, particularly teens, finish their school year and enter the labour market.