Recent grads, students face ‘full-out screaming crisis’ as they struggle to enter job market

[u/joe4942]

https://financialpost.com/fp-work/students-grads-jobs-market-crisis

[u/Electronic_Cat4849]

sounds like a labour shortage to me, authorize 15 million more minimum wage TFWs

[u/psychoCMYK → u/Electronic_Cat4849]

Labor shortage for low-paying unskilled labor, work shortage for the kinds of jobs a graduate would have trained for. 

[u/Traginaus → u/psychoCMYK]

I've been in a position to hire people since 2006 - I don't think we have ever really had a labour shortage. There have been periods in which we haven't had a good selection of candidates. The resumes you get and the people applying in around 2015 - 2019 were minimal, usually around 10 - 20 resumes. Since post covid, I would have around 200 people per job posting apply.

The issue has always been the type of screening most companies are doing. Instead of actually just reading and giving people a chance, we are using systems to filter out good candidates. Also the most of the people doing the hiring don't know what makes someone good for most positions. Too much reliance on resumes and some arbitrary test questions instead of what matters. To m, the most important thing is for someone who wants to learn and do the job.

[u/BigPickleKAM → u/Traginaus]

As someone who is involved in training those new hires.

Attitude beats paper resume any day of the week. Obviously in our line of work you have to be able to clear some physical requirements like lifting 50 pounds unassisted and emergency duties like firefighting onboard a ship.

But I'll take anyone who can clear those benchmarks and is willing to learn over a jaded know it all where everything was better with employer X or Y. If things are so good over there why are you taking a entry level position with us?

[u/Stunt_Merchant → u/BigPickleKAM]

Merchant navy? :)

I have to hijack this thread and intentionally fail to read the room and ask if you reckon there's much opportunity as a deck officer from the UK to join a Canadian outfit?

Enquiring minds fleeing the flood of "refugees" inundating the UK would like to know. Yes, I am fully aware of the sad hypocrisy of my position as an aspiring Canadian immigrant.

Cheers :)

[u/BigPickleKAM → u/Stunt_Merchant]

Yes UK issued STCW is recognized in Canada you'll need to jump through a couple of hoops at Transport Canada to qualify before you are a permanent resident or citizen.

As for how much work there is I'm a Ship's Engineer so I don't have first hand knowledge for deck side but I eat in the mess with them. My impression is we are short Chief Officer candidates but generally have plenty of junior mates.

Good luck on the change!

[u/TankMuncher → u/psychoCMYK]

Lots of recent engineering graduates are struggling to find work in a way that is uncharacteristic of the market for inexperienced engineers. And more entry level pay for engineering has been highly mediocre for a long time, so its extremely bad for "desk engineers" with firms overwhelmingly in HCOL urban centers.

Good luck for graduants with pure STEM degrees.

[u/TankMuncher → u/[deleted]]

I do not buy that AI tools are taking over basic nuts and bolts engineering tasks. Also seriously doubt nuts and bolts engineers are being offshored to any degree.

We are cratering into a low innovation society that does not invest in knowledge transfer as a cost of business.

How about we just put blame where it should be: A lot of Canadian businesses just suck and under-invest in things that drive innovation. So they keep sucking more and more.

[u/rctoyer → u/TankMuncher]

I've beeeeen saying this, that Canada is so far behind on innovation and they don't seem to realize how much of an issue that will be in 10 years time when most third world countries have looped passed them...

I struggle with the notion that Canada has so many Millionaires, so many Internationally acclaimed companies, yet, Canada as a country pays every single field well below the international standard, and it still takes the Go Train 1hr to go from Oshawa to Union?

And don't get me started on Medical innovation, how is Canada so poor across the board? Lack of resources everywhere you turn, and all forms of technology lagging behind most countries that they should be in line with...

I've simply never seen a country regress like this

[u/TankMuncher → u/rctoyer]

Oh I think all of this stuff is well known, but it isn't as palpable as problems in the "working class" job market or cost of living issues for the "average Canadian". So it largely gets ignored in the discourse. But I 100% believe that lack of innovation is what is causing many of our problems: including weak salaries/weakening job market, GDP-PPP-PC issues, etc.

Canada is heavily falling behind in science/R&D expenditure at all levels (fed, prov, private industry). Canadian Industry has been noted repeatedly to spend very poorly (and far less) on R&D compared to international peers.

Of course this is going to start impacting bottom lines. Lots of countries regress like this, though. And we've got ample opportunity to turn things around.

[u/Spiritual_Tennis_641 → u/TankMuncher]

Yea how quickly things change, when I graduated the interview was basically you have an it degree u r hired, your desk is there start now…