The new euphemism for mass immigration of low-skilled workers is 'population growth'.

The Century Initiative will herald in an age of plenty and wonder. :')

“What has stood out, though, is that while youth unemployment and unemployment of people over 25 have both trended up over the past two, two-and-a-half years, the youth unemployment rate has spiked more,” Bernard said. “The deterioration has been faster and greater than we’d expect.”

He said young people have also been hit with a “double whammy” of a weaker labour market and a surge in job seekers due to rapid population growth, especially concentrated among people under 25.

“It’s a bit of bad timing for these two trends to coincide, and that’s a factor behind the weak youth numbers,” he said.

And AI is eating away entry level jobs:

“Gen X, millennials and onward are living in a context where employers don’t have a lot of loyalty towards employees. The likelihood that you’re going to have a job for 40 years is very, very low,” she said. “We’re in a moment of economic challenge, but then layered onto this is the technological shift with AI, which is essentially breaking the career ladder.” Article content

Dougherty is referencing a recent New York Times article by LinkedIn Corp.‘s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, who wrote that artificial intelligence “poses a real threat to a substantial number of the jobs that normally serve as the first step for each new generation of young workers.”

AI isn’t swallowing jobs right away, Raman explained, but the change is coming and “virtually all jobs will experience some impacts,” he wrote. If entry-level jobs disappear, Raman predicts it will exacerbate job market inequality for “those lacking elite networks or privileged backgrounds” and leave employers without enough people to take up leadership roles in the future.

And as always, the youth are sacrificed on the altar of 'grand economic projects':

Meanwhile, some parents of high school students want them to do volunteer work or activities that will look good on a university application. But the outcome is the same: a delayed passage into adulthood.

“We see it all around us. Young people not having kids, choosing not to have kids, not being able to afford a home because you need a stable job to get a mortgage, but you also need a stable job to save for a home,” said Dougherty.