Here’s how some young Canadians are facing their financial future

The Canadian Press has been speaking with young people about the financial challenges facing their generation—a tough job market, unaffordable housing and goals that seem out of reach.

Waiting for everything to work out

A few hours into a night out with friends in downtown Toronto, 19-year-old Eleni Koumoundouros has a choice to make. Does she end the evening early and start the hour-long commute to Oakville, where she lives with her parents? Or, does she savour the evening a little longer and contend with late-night transit and walking home in the dark? It’s a recurring question for the third-year undergraduate at the University of Toronto, who says the commute puts a damper on her social life.

Koumoundouros works 30 hours a week in addition to her schooling, but downtown Toronto rent isn’t affordable. “I’m working so hard to make this money, even if it feels like the money is kind of going nowhere.”

Koumoundouros says her generation is dismayed by scarce job opportunities. The political science student has long hoped for a career in government so she could help pass laws that make people’s lives better, and she hopes today’s policymakers realize the extent of the affordability crisis in Canada. “I think I could be happier. But right now, I’m not entirely disappointed. I’m just chugging along, waiting for everything to work out.”

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Ghosted by employers, “the worst thing.”

Recent graduate Lauren Hood thought that by now she’d be working at her first real job and starting to live independently. But things haven’t gone as planned for the 21-year-old, who completed an undergraduate degree in political studies, philosophy and a certificate in law from Queen’s University in June.

Hood has been job-searching for months and, while she has found work in a store, there are no prospects in sight in her field of study. “The job market right now is very, very hard to get into,” she says.

Hood has been living with her parents in Aurora, Ont., as she continues her job hunt while paying bills with her side gig as a DJ. Her job search hasn’t been easy. Hood recalls walking into a restaurant that hosts weekly open interviews. “At the end of the interview, they said this would be hiring for next April,” she says. “I was like, ‘What do you mean next April? It’s September!”

Hood says she has applied for more than 50 jobs related to her degree and has only fielded two job interviews since graduation. Dealing with rejections has been discouraging. Hood says she’s wary of applying for some jobs because it’s hard for her to handle the disappointment. “Being ghosted by the employers is, I think, one of the worst feelings.”

Hood says the search has upset her plan to save money, pay off her debt and eventually write exams for law school. “I feel behind,” she says. “In my head, I pictured to be working and ideally, it would be nice to move out and not live at home anymore. But I can’t do that without a job.”

Those dreams are out of reach

Taylor Arnt, 27, says the high cost of living means that many young people are unable to meet traditional milestones, like getting married or buying a house, as quickly as previous generations. Arnt, who lives in Winnipeg, says in her parents’ and grandparents’ generations, accomplishments felt linear. But that’s no longer the case. “You went to school, you got a job, you got married, you had kids,” Arnt says. “A lot of those dreams, if we want to follow those, are out of reach.”

Arnt recently lost her policy analyst job due to government funding cuts and is now working as a contracted consultant and group fitness instructor.

Living with family, Arnt says she has “given up on the idea of home ownership any time soon.” Moving out seems far-fetched given the high cost of expenses and her lack of stable employment, she says.

Arnt also says she’s had to process that she might never get married or have kids. “It’s really difficult to plan for a future and think about those goals when you’re struggling to meet your day-to-day basic needs,” Arnt says. “Feeling frustrated that no matter how hard you work, you can’t get to those same places, I think is filtering a lot into how young people are experiencing things and perhaps why they might be so unhappy at the moment.”

I don’t want to spend on unnecessary things

It took 25-year-old Thivian Varnacumaaran more than 400 job applications before finding work in July as an electrical designer. The new graduate from York University in Toronto says he has enough money to pay off his phone bills and other expenses, but there’s not much left over. “I’m still struggling, even with my amount of money that I’m making at the moment, because it is a starting salary,” says Varnacumaaran. “It will take time to obviously increase that and put it in a wage where I can live comfortably.”

He’s currently living with his family in Markham, Ont., something he calls a “privilege.” “I don’t want to spend on unnecessary things, so I try my best.” Varnacumaaran says he knows of many other young graduates who are finding it tough to make ends meet. Ontario’s minimum wage is $17.60 per hour. Varnacumaaran says it’s urgent to raise it to better reflect living costs.

Nevertheless, he’s hopeful for his future. He says his grandparents survived colonialism and civil war in Sri Lanka. When his family moved to Canada, they relied on charity from groups like the Salvation Army but are now in a fairly good position.

Varnacumaaran says he hopes to have a family and children of his own one day. Work hard enough, he says, and “you’ll get what you want.”

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