Graduating into the economic downturn

Originally published in The Fulcrum

Despite a rising national unemployment rate and a recent surge in layoffs, the class of 2009 shouldn’t lose hope about their job prospects just yet.

“There will be jobs,” assures Anne Markey, executive director of the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers. “Will they be easy to find? Will they be exactly what graduating students want, or will it be in the location they want? Maybe not, but there will be jobs.”

With 71,000 Canadian jobs cut in November—66,000 in Ontario alone—many upcoming graduates have been left wondering whether or not they can find a place in today’s job market.

Recruitment agencies in Ontario have seen an increase of new applications following massive job cuts in both the manufacturing and the service sectors.

“Absolutely there has been an increase in the number of candidates looking for something else,” says Pierrette Brousseau, owner of the Ottawa franchise of Hunt Personnel, a national permanent and temporary employment agency.

However, she says they get very few applications from recent post-secondary graduates. “A lot of students end up getting jobs in their fields, so they don’t require our services,” she says.

Even before the global financial crisis, which gained forceful momentum in September 2008, companies have consistently hired recent graduates, explains David Rodas-Wright, coordinator of employer relations at the Student Academic Success Service (SASS) career centre at the University of Ottawa.

“There are companies out there, especially some of the big companies, [for whom] it’s not as much money to hire new talent as it is to maintain senior talent,” he says. “So they continue to look for new graduates.”

Hiring young people also serves as a way to refresh and renew the face of a corporation, according to Rodas-Wright.

Companies across the country seem to be confirming that assertion—despite economic difficulties, many have maintained or even increased hiring rates.

“We’re not cutting back at all on hiring,” says Louisa Testa, executive assistant at Ottawa’s Investors Group, a financial planning company. “Actually, we’ve hired more in the last few years than in the past.”

The Public Service Commission, the federal government branch that supervises post-secondary recruitment, has also recently increased hiring of recent graduates.