New research links record graduate unemployment to automation and inflated hiring requirements
University graduates under 25 face a 10.6 percent unemployment rate — the highest in 30 years outside of a pandemic — and a new white paper argues the cause is structural, not cyclical.
Sounding the Alarm: The Narrowing Path to Work, released May by Express Employment Professionals, draws on two national Harris Poll surveys conducted in November 2025 among 504 Canadian hiring decision-makers and 502 job seekers.
The report examines how automation, post-pandemic restructuring, and inflated job requirements are compressing access to entry-level roles.
The Labour Market Information Council reported that vacancies for jobs requiring a bachelor's degree and fewer than three years of experience dropped by more than half since the beginning of 2024.
The council called it "a structural realignment of early-career work" driven by automation, shifting employer preferences, and an uncertain global economy, rather than a temporary cooling.
More than four in five hiring decision-makers (81 percent) and job seekers (82 percent) told the Express–Harris Poll surveys that entry-level roles now demand more skills than they did in the past.
The white paper describes the core problem as a drift in definition: positions still labelled "entry-level" increasingly require technical credentials, software proficiency, or prior experience — qualities that have traditionally been built through those very roles.
AI is accelerating the compression.
Nearly half of hiring decision-makers (49 percent) said implementing AI would allow them to reduce workforce size, and 45 percent said it is more efficient to use AI for entry-level tasks than to hire and train a candidate, according to the Express–Harris Poll hiring survey.
A US study of 285,000 companies cited in the white paper found that after a firm adopts generative AI, junior employment drops by 9 to 10 percent while senior employment holds steady.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem flagged the same pattern in February 2026, warning of "some early evidence that AI is reducing the number of entry-level jobs in some occupations," as reported by Global News.
The downstream risk for organisations runs deep.
Nearly all hiring decision-makers surveyed (95 percent) said entry-level roles are important for developing future talent, according to the Express–Harris Poll hiring survey — yet the pipeline that feeds mid-level and senior roles is narrowing at the base.
Express franchise owner Michael Elliott of London, Ontario, warned that hiring only "ready-made" talent reduces internal development opportunities and erodes a pipeline that "traditionally built leadership over years."
Christine Martin, an Express franchise owner in Calgary, Alberta, connected the access problem directly to Canada's demographic reality.
"If young people do not have access to entry-level jobs, we will struggle to fill the skills gap being created by our aging and retiring population," she said.
The white paper recommends that employers preserve roles accessible to candidates with zero to two years of experience, align job postings with what structured onboarding can realistically deliver, and expand internships, short-term assignments, and rotational roles that build foundational skills without requiring candidates to arrive fully formed.
Express Employment International CEO Bob Funk Jr. said the problem runs in both directions: job seekers have unrealistic expectations, and employers have lost sight of how critical entry-level roles are to long-term success.
